Beauty of Impermanence

Jay Bautista

Art is but a preparation for that bigger art—the art of Living.

       Ananda Coomaraswamy

For Kim Hamilton Sulit, creating art has been an effective way to cope with his uncertainties, anxieties, and struggles in life. After a decade of art practice, his creative practice has helped him stay afloat. His past exhibitions have displayed his honesty through the process of journaling the phases of his life. The shows have mirrored both his memories and observations with regards to the world around him.

Sulit started conceptualizing Weight of Time early this year, as if by circumstance, Taal Volcano erupted. Some weeks after, the Coronavirus pandemic paralyzed the world. Everyone was at a standstill, like a lot of us, Sulit experienced extreme anxiety and was overwhelmed with what was happening globally. There were times when Sulit would wake up early, prepare his protective gear and walk to his studio only to stare blankly in front of his stretched white canvases. He would hesitate for hours and just be in a daze. The following months leading to the exhibition, the slow and tedious process, has molded what Weight of Time aims to tackle.

Upon entering the gallery space, one is met with The Wall, a massive work on canvas, which echoes Sulit’s waking hours spent alone in the studio during the pandemic.  Taking the form of a cast of his right arm, The Wall imprints scenes during the past months. Filling it up like street graffiti, it is a raw statement of how we have adopted to the “new normal”.

A recurring theme for Sulit are the Blemish works which are intimate takes on mortality and vulnerability. He approximates how the images would result when decayed and distorted.

The idea behind Blemish started in 2013 when the artist saw the album cover of Bjork’s “Medulla”. He was later fascinated with old photographs from the Victorian period; Sulit found it to be too perfect. It was enticing for Sulit to have a different take at these “ideal” portraits. Years later he did another series of works, this time reacting to paintings by the Old masters. He had a fresh attack on them, portraying them pale, blood oozing from their weary eyes.

This new set of Blemish works have been brewing in his mind for a long time. He felt the moment has arrived, as he invited family, friends, fellow artists, and collectors to submit their mug shot photos. He then sought their permission to have free reign to alter these portraits and translate them into the canvas.  Sulit explains that these paintings vary every time he makes a work. For the artist, they exude the beauty of impermanence; that we are mortals and will eventually perish. A kind of memento mori so to speak.

Sulit’s Weight of Time unapologetically explores a defining mood, a certain sentimentality in every Blemish portrayal. After looking long and hard, he takes a swipe using his own figurative interpretation based on one’s resemblance. Blemish is his direct reply to these trying and times. Sulit dwells emphatically with every portrait he does, creating a multitude of rogue-like ghosts peaking at the work’s onlookers. In a way, these portraits comfort Sulit that he is not alone in this current state.

Cement Garden, is an assemblage of found objects (discarded toys, dolls, cars, wooden figurines). Sulit used a custom-made brick-maker for the mold. He then pours cement on them, mixing them with volcanic ash from the Taal eruption. These are framed parables scattered all over the floor. This work affirms Sulit’s penchant with representation. Through his use of found, discarded and used mundane objects common in our everyday lives; how their relationship with one another—placed side by side–in a meticulously crafted setting enables new definitions for thew viewer. Sulit pays homage to the core of materiality, by integrating them into a new order, providing their rebirth in another context wrought through time.

Veering away from painting, Sulit escapes, with temporal things and their possibility to take new forms, to different metaphors. Sulit has a passionate inclination in seeking de-familiarization of context into fresh perspectives..

Sulit has crafted an idea of containment through assemblages, each pertaining to a thematic mood. The more you look at the works, the more stories they yield. There are no titles to each receptacle, as their provenance may vary from his personal significance with the piece to yours. Some of the objects are fragmented from constant usage–creating an eerie feel, as if a cinematic gesture that Sulit envisions.

Spontaneity is key in Sulit’s compositions. He adopts some basic doctrines in what art exhibitions could aspire for— a constant acceptance of flux, repetitions and cycles, thus relinquishing all complex attachments. It is raw and visceral, focusing more of the play of the real versus the unreal.

Weight of Time provides the viewer with the necessary pause from life’s uncertainties, it gives a certain silence to compose ourselves. It has an in-your-face aesthetic as Sulit unloads his burden, by confronting impermanence. One is led to a bare essence, when things are broken down and simplified. There is art, when there is life.