‍Spaces of world-making 

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Jars—these simple objects that occupy and house so much of who we are—are both the subjects and materials that comprise the works for contain, the latest solo exhibition by Pam Yan Santos. 

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Santos taps into her practice in printmaking, assemblage, and installation to produce a new series weighing the symbolic and personal dimensions of jars. Going beyond the mundane functions of organizing and storing, jars are things which hold much more. Countless acts of care, collecting, or compulsion. Traces of memories and rituals. The shape of time. 

The artist returns to the humble jars that form part of her own journey as an artist, educator, and mother. These are containers used for storing paint when working on her artworks, for collecting new and used bits of art materials for workshops, and for collecting the sundry items of everyday life. These are not just functional items, but also signifiers of the invisible and creative labor needed to craft a sense of order from the daily stream of thoughts, things, and matters crying for attention. Yan-Santos describes the personal necessity of art-making: 

“Art making has been both a refuge and a form of catharsis for me in trying to seek mental balance while being a mother, a wife, a daughter and being my own person at the same time.” [1]

The exhibition marks an essential turn in this journey. The artist returns to the very same jars she uses to work on artworks in her studio, giving them an afterlife by producing from the singular idea of the jar an entire suite of wall-bound pieces in painting, serigraphy, and installation. 

In its whole history as a thing, the ordinary glass jar has appeared as subjects of numerous still life paintings and prints and has been collected as materials for assemblage and installation art. 

This exhibition by Yan-Santos demonstrates how all these related visual practices can grow profusely from a singular moment of reflecting on the life of simple things. The sight of empty glass containers, carefully arranged on wood shelving, is mirrored in a mixed media painting: the labels denote that seemingly empty space contains and compartmentalizes a universe of thoughts and experiences. From this intimate alcove, Yan-Santos shows a series of works in the gallery’s main hall how the concept expands and is expressed through the medium of printmaking and installation. 

She returns to the printmaking technique and process of serigraphy to memorialize the imprints of jars on canvas and on the gallery wall. Six mixed media works in collage are built through various items collected through time: paper, old photo albums, workbooks and letters, her children’s drawings. The image of the jar, outlined through negative space, appears as both a central and overlapping element which grows more complex as the series progresses. In a wall print installation made in situ, the artist gently reminds us of how the simplest and smallest items can grow into a mountain, built over the passage of time. 

The largest work in the exhibit is a 40-foot installation piece: a singular bar of shelving that spans the gallery’s longest wall and bearing the weight of actual jars used over the past decades and finally appearing as subjects for her works. This moment of display, perhaps, marks a measure of closure: giving form and shape to the past, the working of memory, and the peace of mind that comes with being able to see things through. 

This series in contain expands the artist’s growing body of work which ruminates on the interconnectedness between space, time, and the human impulse to wield these to one’s will. In her commitment towards both meaning and making, Pam Yan Santos challenges us to look more closely at the rich and complex life inherent in the most ordinary of objects.