Printed in Water | Drawn in Trees   

Efren Madlangsakay

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A whimsicality pervades Madlangsakay’s landscapes, here flattened and abstracted, its parts overlapping and rearranged. A world of shallow depths and measured gestures of mark-making. We see bodies of water peek through openings of dense, hand-drawn foliage further propped up by branches of negative space. Or the trees stand on water, bearing node-like clumps of oddly-colored leaves. What is usually unformed and scattered, liquid and vegetation, form and cohere into skin; while wooden trunks are carved out into emptiness, and we find a space that imposes its presence, cutting through shape and texture to allow us to breathe.

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The artist takes his cue from illustrations for children and their potential for world-building. Often, such images elicit a sense of wonder, as if stumbling upon a world already formed but with rules yet to be discovered. A point of coherence from which one embarks into new explorations. Similarly, the works allow Madlangsakay’s practice in painting, drawing, and printmaking to cohere. Attracted to the repetitions of prints, he recreates these through painting patterns of the sea amidst entanglements of leaves. Not finding land, our eyes maneuver across these explorations, on and through the edges of paint to clustered ink to exposed paper.

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Working on the two-dimensional has often required one to be cognizant of the ways in which we place marks on the ground. This goes with being acutely aware of how we use the space, of the portions we leave unmarked, and the new dimensions formed by such choices. Instead of allowing the ground to recede or become an unnoticed volume of space, Madlangsakay’s tendency has been to bring them to the fore. Shapes of stark emptiness allude to solidity. In this exhibition, it is this interplay of form, texture, and space that serves as bedrock to the artist’s fascination and exploration.

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- JC Rosette

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