Connections That We Crave

Mark Dawn Arcamo

Blanc Gallery / July 10 to 31, 2021

Fleeting moments. Choppy transmission. Overlapping noises. Filters, features, and endless options on how to communicate on the cloud.

This is what the information age has afforded us, both the good and the bad, to build or destroy—but, ultimately, change—how we connect.

Mark Dawn Arcamo’s new collection of acrylic paintings, Connections That We Crave, tackles media consumption and social consciousness in this hyperrealistic information age. As a self-described social and visual being, Arcamo builds on his fixation and curiosity of society’s emotional and intellectual responses to media, as well as our tendency to become overstimulated by it. Using American artist James Turrell’s statement “We live within this reality we create, and we’re quite unaware of how we create the reality” as a prompt, Arcamo expresses the contrasting energies of fast-paced media consumption and the distant feeling of detachment through a combination of bright pastels and monochromes. The works show both easily identifiable subjects—almost like a magazine editorial—as well as chaotic and disruptive lines either dominating the canvas or subtly creeping into otherwise calm aesthetics.

With our devices acting as our main window to the pandemic-ridden world, there are many ways in which our message gets distorted by the noise that comes with the convenience that each new medium brings. For the artist, it is this bombardment of information and knowledge that tends to undulate into detachment and disconnection. Based on his personal experiences and observations of the environment beyond his own, channeling emotions sometimes becomes difficult. We feel outrage, fear, and frustration over things that have nothing to do with us, while things that truly matter get lost in the sauce. For Arcamo, it is these missed, meaningful connections that matter; regardless of whether it’s the emotional, intellectual, spiritual or physical kind—the people and things that hold authentic meaning in our lives are the living connections we should appreciate and hold close.

Mark Dawn Arcamo is a visual artist from Zamboanga del Sur, Philippines. He studied Fine Arts at the Far Eastern University and has held several solo shows and joined group exhibitions in the Philippines.

Exhibition notes: Nikki Ignacio