The Shape of Things to Come

In his recent solo exhibition, “The Shape of Things to Come”, Arturo Sanchez Jr. looks into the parallelism of collages and human experiences concerning the process of speculation. Sanchez takes the role of the hunter and gatherer in searching for images and representations through old books, print materials, and other publications. Crucial to this task is the artist’s decision in selecting and discarding ephemera in materializing concepts, ideas, and feelings through visual narratives. If there’s a way that one can speculate about everything that happens in life, how should one navigate this task? Sanchez responds to this undertaking by allowing impulse and intuition to take over. Hence, realizing that to portray life, one must listen to the feelings inside ourselves waiting to be articulated.

Diverting from his usual steps in art-making, where he begins with an outline to identify settings and scenes, Sanchez produced works that manifest his biases and musings as to what might constitute life as defined by images and contexts formed through hypothesized notions. Perhaps, a practice that reminds us that when the unpredictability of things is amplified by the day, any guise of control grounds our survival. Here, Sanchez stitches the processes he develops in art-making and his postulations about human life altogether.

Sanchez produced his early works using the form with mirrors, before developing a technique that now involves the pouring of resin onto the composition. Thus, the arranged images appear arrested and seized under a transparent polished material resembling silver screens that had once projected films. The procured images are placed underneath an acrylic shield. The resin sets an illusion that the subjects are about to speak or move, however, they remain at a standstill. This final part of the process is in line with our situation at present. We cannot determine what the future holds but we may participate in taking control in probing and grasping the shapes of things that are just about to come.