At the turn of the 17th century, transposing the artist’s subject matter to a canvas became more accessible using ‘camera obscura.’ The sun-exposed object is thrown into a pinhole lens and inversely projected onto a canvas. In order to retain the projected image, the artist needs to soak a sheet of canvas in silver salts; dry it before mounting into the camera; leaving it exposed for at least eight hours before washing it with ammonia and painting over the canvas. This process may have been washed down throughout the centuries, but the principles of capturing a vision from an artist’s mind down to the canvas has remained intact—it is more complex than it seems.  

Artists have remained challenged in transcending images drawn from source materials even at a time when photographs are easily accessible. Elaine Roberto-Navas’ tactile rendering of paint onto a flat surface can immediately transport a viewer into a sensuous spectacle. Photographs taken by her or by her peers become an autobiographical account that maps out her current fixation. In her paintings of bodies of water reflecting their natural surroundings, viewers are able to appreciate the simulated actuality of the image, and that close attention to every detail seems to substitute the sensory sensations of a real-life experience.

The instinctive impulse to combine seemingly unrelated images in an apophenic manner has become quintessential to Pardo de Leon’s work. Her zoomed-in paintings of found images confront classical and conventional motifs in painting and at the same time become her way of disentangling memories and personal experiences. The resulting images prompt viewers to interpret the interconnectedness behind every composition; and on further inspection, they mirror our digital age of viewing images—losing their meaning with every scroll and every click of a button.

Pardo de Leon and Elaine Roberto-Navas’ Complex Rituals renders the artists’ command of paint as a tool and turns the viewer’s focus into their artistic processes and practices. Roberto-Navas and de Leon’s distinct sense of capturing mundane images and translating them into breathtaking visuals only summarizes the entire course of their artistic production. Behind every image is a memory unraveling one’s impulse; behind every composition is an unheard story of obsession over a subject matter; and behind every stroke is a reflection of their personal introspection. In their works, their individual realities and art practices overlap on every canvas, when ‘imitating’ becomes an interchangeable act between life and art.

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Complex Rituals is part of MO_Space X, a series of shows that celebrates the gallery’s ten years of activities since its opening in 2007.