Felix Bacolor's stormy weather immerses us in his whimsical dreamscape of exquisite kitsch. Utilizing eight hundred acrylic wind chimes rummaged from flea markets, these quaint garden curios are installed in the middle of the gallery. Leaving the walls unadorned, the gallery becomes an odd wonderland—a virtual forest suspended on the ceiling where this gaudy upside-down garden of sensorial delight glistens like candy-colored icicles. A dangling menagerie of objects: fruits, hearts, bells, shells, dolphins, butterflies, unicorns and other fanciful trinkets, this tongue-in-cheek mobile installation elicits a spontaneous sense of childlike glee.

Stirred by a couple of oscillating industrial fans, the installation becomes an eccentric instrument resonant with the discordant tinkling of a constellation of acoustic ornaments. Simulating the restless murmur of an incoming storm, the artificial turbulence generated by these electric appliances pokes fun at the mildly disturbing or disorienting occurrence of traditional open-air trinkets, meant to capture the soothing effect of a natural breeze, agitated inside an enclosed space.

The installation evokes an overall light-and-easy feeling, and though the work may hint at environmental, sociological, or cultural issues such as the tiangge subculture or even commoditization, it inherently refuses to engage in heavy reading and is a mock commentary at heart.

Often working with detritus and utilizing perishable material, Bacolor makes installations that have an inherently ephemeral quality that revels in the novelty of the moment, and his works seldom exist in its presented form after their exhibition. Spurred by the impetus of a whimsical thought, his installations have the semblance of school science projects gone awry and with the slightest hint of a prankster's mischief. Felix Bacolor takes risks in putting up exhibitions with no predetermined approach in realizing or reconciling the work with the imagery he had conjured in his head. He himself anticipates its final outcome, and perhaps part of the thrill in viewing his work is its possibility of failure because it points to a vulnerability and earnestness that might leave you rallying behind it—the way you would for, say, a tightrope walker.

His works characteristically incorporate transient elements that linger in the mind long after the work or its components have disintegrated or evolved into other things beyond its physicality. His installation grapples with the difficulty, if not impossibility, of translating abstract and ephemeral concepts into something tangible. His art seems to pay homage to everyday, peripheral objects or moments we take for granted and re-present them in another perspective from which we can behold them with renewed attention or interest. Bacolor transforms an otherwise ordinary experience into something fanciful yet transcendent.

‍