Mute Earth
Various Artists
Lec Cruz, Winner Jumalon, Jason Montinola, Kaloy Sanchez
Lec Cruz, Winner Jumalon, Jason Montinola, Kaloy Sanchez
09 January – 07 February 2021
Curated by
09 January – 07 February 2021
Mute Earth is a collection of familiar works from four artists interspersing their unique take on tragedies and realities. In it, Kaloy Sanchez, Winner Jumalon, Lec Cruz, and Jason Montinola survey narratives that tie together the past and the present, the personal and the universal.
Kaloy Sanchez’ “Alingawngaw” could be seen as a character study of a person seeking refuge inside her own personal safe space – of a body in isolation. Naked and surrounded by personal effects, she entrenches herself in a comfortable position. This has been one of Sanchez’ favourite motifs to explore, a subject embracing the warmth of desolation and confines of an enclosed room. Sanchez reveals that the pandemic has reshaped the context of his work, as our hushed communities now seemed to have been wrapped in sheets of remoteness and solitude.
The body has been one of Winner Jumalon’s most explored themes. His figures are mostly stripped of details but remain recognizable with their distinct features—revealing what the artist intends to highlight. His works “Tierra (Land)” and “Agua (Water)” cast light into his realization during last year’s typhoon which affected their family and his studio. The images portray himself and his partner stalled in a moment of rest but surrounded by the unsettling void, removed from materials that resembles a home.
Lec Cruz takes cue from societal concerns of the present and reflects on them through the lens of the past. “Weighing the Immovable” is a nod to Jean-François Millet’s “The Angelus.” In it, a woman bows in front of a floating tip of a mountain as if reflecting or meditating upon a surreal moment. “The Body was a Meat” monumentalizes the impunity of violence that is being relived in the Philippine society as a meat is placed on a massive bed formerly owned by the Marcoses. Both works explore the socio-political conditions that are being heightened by the ongoing pandemic.
Jason Montinola’s “The Lady of Shalott” re-contextualized John William Waterhouse’s painting and injects new meaning to Tennyson’s version of the legend. The images recall the moments before the woman befalls her tragic death. Her story echoes our present realities as she was confined to her quarters, in isolation from the world. Her curse forbade her to view the outside world directly and see it only through a mirror. Montinola’s works serve as an invitation to re-examine our own state of alienation enclosed in a society with shrouded realities.
About the Artist
About the Artists
Michael John ‘Lec’ Cruz first obtained a degree BA Philosophy at the University of the Philippines, Diliman and later finished a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts, Major in Painting at the same university. Cruz is also a freelance art writer since 2015 and commonly writes for galleries’ and artists’ exhibition notes and write-ups for catalogues.
leCruz had numerous group and solo exhibitions both around the Philippines and abroad. Some of his exhibitions were held at NCCA Gallery, UP Vargas Museum, Tam-awan Village (Baguio City), Pinto Art Gallery, Vinyl on Vinyl Gallery, and recently at Our Art Projects (Malaysia) in 2018.
Winner Jumalon (b. 1983, Zamboanga, Philippines) received his Bachelor’s degree in Painting from the University of the Philippines in 2004, after four years of preparatory schooling at the Philippine High School for the Arts at Mt. Makiling, Los Baños, where he was awarded the Outstanding Artist Award. He has received and been nominated for numerous awards as well, including the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Thirteen Artists Award in 2009, the Philip Morris Art Awards Top 50 Finalists in 2003, and the Juror’s Choice in 2005. Jumalon was also awarded the Tiroche Deleon Collective Residency Program (Jaffa, Israel) in 2016 and got shortlisted for the Ateneo Art Awards in 2008.
He had numerous solo and group exhibitions in the local and international: at West Gallery, Ayala Museum, Bencab Museum, Pinto Art Gallery, and Vargas Museum to name a few from the Philippines, and internationally in Indonesia, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Italy, and USA.
Jumalon’s works are in permanent collections of the Pinto Art Museum (Philippines), Metropolitan Museum of Manila (Philippines), to name some.
Engrossed with encyclopedias of paintings as a child, Jason Montinola works with his subconscious and reinvents a visual language that is deeply rooted in the past but imbibed with the strangeness and familiarity of today. Set in intricate frames, canvases, and strokes of paint, tradition is reintroduced with otherworldly imagery.
Jason Montinola received his Bachelor of Science in Art Education from the Technological University of the Philippines in 2003. His solo exhibitions are: Infamous at Artesan Gallery + Studio, Singapore, in December 2013; Theatre of Absurdities at OUR Art Projects MIA Art Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2013; Sinister at; West Gallery, 2012; Here Lies the Painter at West Gallery, 2011 and The Black Carnival at the Big and Small Art Gallery, 2010. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions in various spaces in Manila, Negros Occidental, California, New York and Malaysia.
Kaloy Sanchez (b. 1982) graduated with a BFA from the University of the Philippines in 2006.
His solo exhibitions include Nausea, West Gallery, Quezon City, Philippines (2013); Ring Around Rosie, Manila Contemporary, Makati City, Philippines, 2012; Missives to the Ocean, West Gallery, Quezon City, Philippines, 2011; Too Loud a Solitude, Valentine Willie Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, 2011. He has also participated in numerous group shows such as Manila: The Night is Restless, The Day is Scornful, ARNDT Singapore, 2014; Secret Rooms & Hidden Motives by Jason Montinola and Kaloy Sanchez, Valentine Willie Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2012; Imagining Identity: 100 Filipino Self Portraits, Finale Art File, Makati City, Philippines, 2012.
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About the Artists
About the Artist
Michael John ‘Lec’ Cruz first obtained a degree BA Philosophy at the University of the Philippines, Diliman and later finished a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts, Major in Painting at the same university. Cruz is also a freelance art writer since 2015 and commonly writes for galleries’ and artists’ exhibition notes and write-ups for catalogues.
leCruz had numerous group and solo exhibitions both around the Philippines and abroad. Some of his exhibitions were held at NCCA Gallery, UP Vargas Museum, Tam-awan Village (Baguio City), Pinto Art Gallery, Vinyl on Vinyl Gallery, and recently at Our Art Projects (Malaysia) in 2018.
Winner Jumalon (b. 1983, Zamboanga, Philippines) received his Bachelor’s degree in Painting from the University of the Philippines in 2004, after four years of preparatory schooling at the Philippine High School for the Arts at Mt. Makiling, Los Baños, where he was awarded the Outstanding Artist Award. He has received and been nominated for numerous awards as well, including the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Thirteen Artists Award in 2009, the Philip Morris Art Awards Top 50 Finalists in 2003, and the Juror’s Choice in 2005. Jumalon was also awarded the Tiroche Deleon Collective Residency Program (Jaffa, Israel) in 2016 and got shortlisted for the Ateneo Art Awards in 2008.
He had numerous solo and group exhibitions in the local and international: at West Gallery, Ayala Museum, Bencab Museum, Pinto Art Gallery, and Vargas Museum to name a few from the Philippines, and internationally in Indonesia, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Italy, and USA.
Jumalon’s works are in permanent collections of the Pinto Art Museum (Philippines), Metropolitan Museum of Manila (Philippines), to name some.
Engrossed with encyclopedias of paintings as a child, Jason Montinola works with his subconscious and reinvents a visual language that is deeply rooted in the past but imbibed with the strangeness and familiarity of today. Set in intricate frames, canvases, and strokes of paint, tradition is reintroduced with otherworldly imagery.
Jason Montinola received his Bachelor of Science in Art Education from the Technological University of the Philippines in 2003. His solo exhibitions are: Infamous at Artesan Gallery + Studio, Singapore, in December 2013; Theatre of Absurdities at OUR Art Projects MIA Art Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2013; Sinister at; West Gallery, 2012; Here Lies the Painter at West Gallery, 2011 and The Black Carnival at the Big and Small Art Gallery, 2010. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions in various spaces in Manila, Negros Occidental, California, New York and Malaysia.
Kaloy Sanchez (b. 1982) graduated with a BFA from the University of the Philippines in 2006.
His solo exhibitions include Nausea, West Gallery, Quezon City, Philippines (2013); Ring Around Rosie, Manila Contemporary, Makati City, Philippines, 2012; Missives to the Ocean, West Gallery, Quezon City, Philippines, 2011; Too Loud a Solitude, Valentine Willie Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, 2011. He has also participated in numerous group shows such as Manila: The Night is Restless, The Day is Scornful, ARNDT Singapore, 2014; Secret Rooms & Hidden Motives by Jason Montinola and Kaloy Sanchez, Valentine Willie Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2012; Imagining Identity: 100 Filipino Self Portraits, Finale Art File, Makati City, Philippines, 2012.
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