Jack of Golds

Blanc Gallery

July 2020

 

Jack of Golds is dealt to you, as it were, as a group exhibition, although to have perceived first that it is a singular artist’s call to action—where Wipo plays quasi-collaborator and quasi-curator—may grant a leverage in speculating on this gathering of artists’ covert impetus, one that is arguably unknown even to the intimate party in question, as here, gold is both flame and fuel, body and soul, muse and mystery.

 

This transitory artist-network is a thinking-out-loud with an incidentally shiny physicality, constituting a trove-staging that is unabashedly unfinal, an amber-tinged conversation that skirts the thin line between pure and puerile, all the while disavowing the pains of passing judgment on which is which; imagine that the miner is blind to the blinding: the exactitude of the determination of karat units is bumped off for the democracy of a census. The artist is primarily interested to know: What is gold to you? It is a deceptively plain probe into the cavernous cosmogony of inner lives and private thought, but it is also a question that seeps into the intricacies of moral valuation, inevitably extending onto the gray domain of the ideological and political. The elemental impetus here is as democratic as it is psychoanalytic.

 

Is answering the riddle of the Sphinx itself a voluntary act of self-incrimination, a Faustian pact? In this case, the golden bargain is love-at-first-sight in exchange for what is itself a beast, a mammoth paradox of what is apparent and what is hidden, and the irony of what is hidden in plain sight. Perhaps the hidden project here is an anti-alchemy, the turning of gold into what is other-than-gold. The pertinent transmutation here is not of metallurgy, but of meaning.

 

Although briefly united in this setting, the artists find themselves ultimately stumbling on forking paths: among them, the transactional diminution of identity, synecdochic mirrors to memory, introspections on touch and time, and doubts cast on the truth in beauty. — JED GREGORIO

 

Works

CELINE LEE - UNTITLED

15 x 11 inches Chlorine and Water on Dyed 90gsm Abaca Paper 2020

GLENN MENDIOLA - UNTITLED 1

9 x 11 inches Photo print on Acid-free Paper, 1/1 Edition 2020

GLENN MENDIOLA - UNTITLED 2

9 x 11 inches Photo print on Acid-free Paper, 1/1 Edition 2020

GLENN MENDIOLA - UNTITLED 3

9 x 11 inches Photo print on Acid-free Paper, 1/1 Edition 2020

ISSAY RODRIGUEZ - BUSINESS OF LOSING TOUCH 4

12 x 9 inches graphite on paper (200gsm, 9sheets) 2020

ISSAY RODRIGUEZ - BUSINESS OF LOSING TOUCH 5

12 x 9 inches graphite on paper (200gsm, 9sheets) 2020

ISSAY RODRIGUEZ - BUSINESS OF LOSING TOUCH 6

12 x 9 inches graphite on paper (200gsm, 9sheets) 2020

ISSAY RODRIGUEZ - BUSINESS OF LOSING TOUCH 7

12 x 9 inches graphite on paper (200gsm, 9sheets) 2020

ISSAY RODRIGUEZ - BUSINESS OF LOSING TOUCH 8

12 x 9 inches graphite on paper (200gsm, 9sheets) 2020

ISSAY RODRIGUEZ - BUSINESS OF LOSING TOUCH 9

12 x 9 inches graphite on paper (200gsm, 9sheets) 2020

ISSAY RODRIGUEZ - BUSINESS OF LOSING TOUCH 10

12 x 9 inches graphite on paper (200gsm, 9sheets) 2020

ISSAY RODRIGUEZ - BUSINESS OF LOSING TOUCH 11

12 x 9 inches graphite on paper (200gsm, 9sheets) 2020

ISSAY RODRIGUEZ - BUSINESS OF LOSING TOUCH 12

12 x 9 inches graphite on paper (200gsm, 9sheets) 2020

JEROME LORICO - DANIEL 5:27 (WEIGHTED BUT FOUND WANTING)

46 x 41 inches Melted Prayer Candles Collected from Churches 2020

KAT GROW - NECTAR OF BECOMING

18 x 16 inches Handmade Egg Tempera on Traditional Gesso Board 2020

KOKI LXX - FIVE UNEASY PIECES

4. WITH MARCO ROSARIO (BLACK VESSEL) 5. WITH PABLO PACATI III (VESSEL WITH GLASS POOL) 6. (VESSEL WITH BROWN LIP) 7. WITH ELLA MENDOZA & PABLO CAPATI III (BLUE BOWL) 8. WITH JEZZEL WEE (MUG WITH KNIT CORD) Traditional Lacquer repair with gold powder on stoneware 2019-2020

LESYLEY-ANNE CAO

4 1/2 x 1 1/2 x 61 inches Golden-filled chain, gold plated-chain, brass hooks, wood 2019-2020

LILIANNA MANAHAN - UNTITLED

20 x 20 x 54 inches Concave Lens, gold leaf on metal and concrete 2020

MARCO ROSARIO - FROM WOOD ASHES

12 x 3 x 2 1/2 inches Anagama Wood-fired Ceramics 2020

MARS BUGAOAN - 10.03.2020

Size Variable Found Wires 2020

MIGUEL LORENZO UY - ABSTRACTIONS (EMV)

5 x 7 inches each C-Print, 30pcs, per set edition of 4 2020

MIGUEL PUYAT - GOLDEN HOUR

8 x 14 1/2 x 9 inches Wall Clock, found wood, broken frosted glass, found cardboard cutouts 2020

PURPO - GOLDEN SUNSET

18 x 24 inches Serigraphy, plastisol on watercolor paper (edition of 2) 2020

RAFAELLE LOUISE - UNTITLED (GOLD LANDSCAPE)

27 x 17 x 4 inches Polyvinyl acetate, gypsum, acrylic lacquer on wood 2019

RAFAELLE LOUISE - WINGED SUN

36 diameter, 38 x 38 x 3 inches Polyvinyl acetate, gypsum, acrylic lacquer on wood 2020

RICHARD LEGASPI - ILLUSIONE

12 x 12 inches Photogram and Acrylic on Canvas 2020

RICHARD LEGASPI - MISTERO

12 x 12 inches Photogram and Acrylic on Canvas 2020

RICHARD LEGASPI - VERITA

12 x 12 inches Photogram and Acrylic on Canvas 2020

SPEKTACULARIS - AURELIA 1

8 x 4 inches Blown Glass, Gold 2019

SPEKTACULARIS - AURELIA 2

11 x 4 1/2 diameter inches Blown Glass, Gold 2019

WIPO - GOLD IS GOOD

30 x 24 inches Acrylic on Canvas 2020

WIPO - DELAYED RENDITION

15 1/2 x 18 inches Acrylic Paint, Acrylic glass, metal 2020

WIPO - BRUSH,30

12 x 16 inches Acrylic on Artist Brush 2020

WIPO - GOLD EYES

12 x 16 inches Thin metal sheet on artist eye glasses 2020

WIPO - GOLD ON GOD

12 x 16 inches Paper, Thin Metal Sheet, glue 2020

WIPO - GOLD ON NUTS

12 x 16 inches Nuts, acrylic medium, thin metal sheet 2020

WIPO & ISSAY RODRIGUEZ - GOLD STICKERS

12 x 16 inches Collected Stickers from Issay Exhibition 2019-2020

WIPO - GOLD ON PALM

12 x 16 inches Photo print on acid-free paper 2020

WIPO - UNTITLED

16 x 17 inches Acrylic on Wood 2020

WIPO - BLACK CANVAS 1

48 x 40 inches Acrylic, collected carbon black tire factory (N220, N330, N550, N660) Dirt on Canvas 2020

Documentation