Come a little closer, Move a little far
Keigh Cruz, Mai Saporsantos, Ev Yu
05 – 31 December 2020
Curated by
05 – 31 December 2020
MO_Space presents Come a little closer, Move a little far, a three-person show featuring Keigh Cruz, Mai Saporsantos, and Ev Yu, featuring paintings that explore the measure of contemporary experience and its unique register through the metamorphosis of figuration, landscape, narrative, and abstraction, in forming novel meanings within the moment of a constantly evolving context.
Playing with the formal elements of color and contour to produce semblances, Keigh Cruz imparts her approach: “Taking a break from previous more abstract work, I wanted to now explore the possibilities of the pictorial plane and of figures. My work examines how shapes and contour express the substance of the subject matter. In this particular work, the subject is the feline friends I see each day of distancing physically.”
Mai Saporsantos creates inventive vistas of painterly ground towards the progression of a unique perception of place. Furthermore she conveys: “This series is my current exploration of space and place. Exploring, finding, and also forming new experiences by combining familiar places and things that interact with and intercept the terrain as like-collages in the landscape. So the paintings for me become possibilities for new places.”
Ev Yu produces serial imagery that lag in time to insert wondrous simulations occurring in the space of an instant. In thinking about her work, she explains: “When a conversation reaches an uncomfortable pause, it would bring comfort if people’s faces can opt for a screensaver mode. These paintings are some intermission mode options.”
Come a little closer, Move a little far brings together these three distinct points of view to pull the pliable qualities of painting as a process of distinguishing codes for a new kind of representation and to push painting’s capacity to construct complex compositions and collage-like realities in forming new contexts as foundations for compelling narratives.
About the Artist
About the Artists
Keigh Cruz, a Quezon City-based artist, finds delight in making meaning of her vicinity. Her work aims to translate her observations, recollections, and intentions into expression.
She is the artist behind “All-Star Variety” (2018) and “Wall Cakes” (2019). Before and between those, Cruz experienced contributing pieces to group shows in and around Metro Manila. In those years, she endeavored to explore the meaning of work within the walls of a gallery. Since then, she has shifted focus anew towards gestures that are purposefully inspired by the relationships between her environment, her work, herself, and her audience.
Cruz was born in Manila to parents from Bulacan, and grew up in Quezon City with immediate family. She holds a degree in Studio Arts with a Major in Painting from the University of the Philippines and has previously attempted a degree in Biochemistry from De La Salle University. As a pandemic remains unresolved, she works mostly at home.
Mai Saporsantos paints inventive narratives about the self in relation to everyday life and its multi-colored mysteries. She uses combined elements from abstraction and representation influenced by ideas of cosmic and imagined realities.
She received her BA in Art Studies from the University of the Philippines Diliman, and studied Combined Media Painting and Art in Three-Dimensions at the Art Students League, NY. She has shown at Phyllis Harriman Mason Gallery, Artery Art Space, Mono8 Gallery, Kaida Contemporary, Vinyl on Vinyl, Ysobel Art Gallery, and Pinto Art Museum.
Ev Yu is a visual artist based in Manila. Using watercolor as her main medium, Yu’s works revolve around the intricacies of printmaking and graphic design, highlighting and recreating the imperfections of machine intervention. Most of her imagery is based on static and kinetic forms. Combining landscape images in motion, the end result is a hodgepodge of abstract forms, arranged in a comic book-like sequence.
Yu was only invited to join a couple of gallery based group shows in 2015. Her works were more detailed ink drawings. Around 2016, she started a series of watercolor paintings that were inspired by the sequential nature of comic book art. Inspired by the color misprints, graphic effects and structured panelling that divided motion, she incorporated these to bigger watercolor pieces. Her first solo exhibit was in November 2018 and it was self curated, a mixture of objects and wall bound paintings. The idea behind was about rummaging through a messy pile of things and going in circles. It is dealing with the process of discovering and questioning.
If not painting, she would be manning a zine (Studio Soup Library) and vintage store (UVLA Store) in Manila. Yu can say that this is the part of her life that has increased her appreciation for paper art and odd objects. She has exhibited solo exhibitions such as Squares Running in Circles at West Gallery, Souvenir State at Kinkan Gallery, and Dimensions of Fragility at Galerie Stephanie, to name a few.
Related Exhibitions
About the Artists
About the Artist
Keigh Cruz, a Quezon City-based artist, finds delight in making meaning of her vicinity. Her work aims to translate her observations, recollections, and intentions into expression.
She is the artist behind “All-Star Variety” (2018) and “Wall Cakes” (2019). Before and between those, Cruz experienced contributing pieces to group shows in and around Metro Manila. In those years, she endeavored to explore the meaning of work within the walls of a gallery. Since then, she has shifted focus anew towards gestures that are purposefully inspired by the relationships between her environment, her work, herself, and her audience.
Cruz was born in Manila to parents from Bulacan, and grew up in Quezon City with immediate family. She holds a degree in Studio Arts with a Major in Painting from the University of the Philippines and has previously attempted a degree in Biochemistry from De La Salle University. As a pandemic remains unresolved, she works mostly at home.
Mai Saporsantos paints inventive narratives about the self in relation to everyday life and its multi-colored mysteries. She uses combined elements from abstraction and representation influenced by ideas of cosmic and imagined realities.
She received her BA in Art Studies from the University of the Philippines Diliman, and studied Combined Media Painting and Art in Three-Dimensions at the Art Students League, NY. She has shown at Phyllis Harriman Mason Gallery, Artery Art Space, Mono8 Gallery, Kaida Contemporary, Vinyl on Vinyl, Ysobel Art Gallery, and Pinto Art Museum.
Ev Yu is a visual artist based in Manila. Using watercolor as her main medium, Yu’s works revolve around the intricacies of printmaking and graphic design, highlighting and recreating the imperfections of machine intervention. Most of her imagery is based on static and kinetic forms. Combining landscape images in motion, the end result is a hodgepodge of abstract forms, arranged in a comic book-like sequence.
Yu was only invited to join a couple of gallery based group shows in 2015. Her works were more detailed ink drawings. Around 2016, she started a series of watercolor paintings that were inspired by the sequential nature of comic book art. Inspired by the color misprints, graphic effects and structured panelling that divided motion, she incorporated these to bigger watercolor pieces. Her first solo exhibit was in November 2018 and it was self curated, a mixture of objects and wall bound paintings. The idea behind was about rummaging through a messy pile of things and going in circles. It is dealing with the process of discovering and questioning.
If not painting, she would be manning a zine (Studio Soup Library) and vintage store (UVLA Store) in Manila. Yu can say that this is the part of her life that has increased her appreciation for paper art and odd objects. She has exhibited solo exhibitions such as Squares Running in Circles at West Gallery, Souvenir State at Kinkan Gallery, and Dimensions of Fragility at Galerie Stephanie, to name a few.
Related Exhibitions
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