MANILA
RYAN VILLAMAEL
Return, My Gracious Hour
9 January – 3 February 2024
Opening Reception: 9 January, 4 – 7 PM
Silverlens Manila opens 2024 with the solo exhibition, Return, My Gracious Hour, by Ryan Villamael. Motivated by Jose Rizal’s poem, Memories of My Town, this exhibition surveils, appropriates, and reconstitutes American-Occupation archival materials, presenting them in amazing flora; Villamael is known principally for paper cutouts. Whether encased in vitrines or flourishing out in the open, the works consider history not as an end, but a means—a medium through which parallelisms between the past and the post-colonial present may be drawn.
MANILA
TESSY PETTYJOHN
A Light in Everything
9 January – 3 February 2024
Opening Reception: 9 January, 4 – 7 PM
In her art and beyond, Tessy Pettyjohn is looking for tranquility. In A Light in Everything, her second solo exhibition at Silverlens, Pettyjohn unveils a new series of sculptural clay works with the intention of illuminating forms seen only during the act of meditation, a practice that has long informed her art-making process, from concept to creation.
NEW YORK
WAWI NAVARROZA
The Other Shore
11 January – 2 March 2024
Opening Reception: 11 January, 6 – 8 PM
Silverlens New York kicks off 2024 with a solo exhibition by Filipina artist Wawi Navarroza, a leading figure in contemporary Southeast Asian art. The show marks Navarroza’s first solo exhibition in the US after more than a quarter-century of photography practice.
Born in Manila and shuttling between Manila, Madrid, and Istanbul, Navarroza is known for her large-format photographic tableaus and self-portraits. The Other Shore chronicles her work from 2019 to 2023, and invites new audiences into her expansive world building, where language is replaced by a vivid and opulent lexicon consisting of objects, place and cross-cultural exchange.
Co-presented by Silverlens and Arc Gin, a conversation between Navarroza and curator Christopher Y. Lew will be held on Saturday, 20 January, 1pm. Attendees can register by email at [email protected]
NEW YORK
GREGORY HALILI
Vanishing
11 January – 2 March 2024
Opening Reception: 11 January, 6 – 8 PM
To coincide with Wawi Navarroza: The Other Shore, Silverlens New York will present a collection of miniature paintings on capiz shells by Gregory Halili in the Viewing Room. The artist pushes the material to its most fragile state, almost to the point of breaking. These capiz shells are thinned down until they are glass-like, which allows for the paintings of the butterflies and moths on the reverse to be seen on the other side. “What at first may look like simple, beautiful works of butterflies and moths are actually a commentary on the complex, fragile state of the environment and the unpredictable future,” says Halili.
ART FAIR
SINGAPORE
PIO ABAD
POKLONG ANADING
NICOLE COSON
TALOI HAVINI
BERNARDO PACQUING
STEPHANIE SYJUCO
RYAN VILLAMAEL
YEE I-LANN
S.E.A. Focus
Tanjong Pagar Distripark
Preview: 19 January 2024
Public Days: 20 – 28 January 2024
For S.E.A. Focus 2024, Silverlens will present works by eight contemporary artists from the Filipino diaspora and the Asia-Pacific. Challenging the myth surrounding the sociopolitical legacy of the Marcoses, Pio Abad‘s Thoughtful Gifts (2021) explores a transnational narrative involving characters impacted by the United States’ quest for empire.
In a continuation of his series anonymity (2006 – 2011), Poklong Anading captures the interplay of subject, object, and light, while Nicole Coson imprints transport crates onto canvases, forming circuitry in a way that intersects the history of Philippine trade with the technology of the present.
A collaborative work with her Hakö clan members, Taloi Havini‘s work Reclamation delves into questions of temporal spaces and border definitions. Bernardo Pacquing continues his Blossom series (2016 – ), experimenting with gestural execution and a focus on cadence in three new oil paintings. Stephanie Syjuco‘s Block Out the Sun (2021) intervenes with historical archives, responding to the faux Filipino village at the 1904 St Louis World’s Fair. Ryan Villamael depicts an indigenous oasis in a vitrine in Pulô (2023), while his larger installation, Locus Amoenus (2017–2023), occupies Esplanade Singapore. Yee I-Lann explores the woven mat’s significance across Southeast Asia, considering it an architectural and democratic portal to storytelling.
The fair program includes a panel discussion and book launch titled Collaboration and Community: Yee I-Lann, June Yap and Beverly Yong on 20 January 2024, celebrating Yee I-Lann’s monograph the sun will rise in the east, which traces Yee I-Lann’s artistic journey from 2011 to 2023 through essays, conversations, and photographic documentation.
CLOSING SOON
NEW YORK
MIT JAI INN
Mit Jai Inn at Silverlens
Through 6 January 2024
