In this staggering work that delivers a jolt to the senses, the viewer encounters the pandemic as never before told in a painting. This is the Eden not of beginnings but of endings, in which death in its many forms is omnipresent, people are brought to chaos as certainties wobble and disappear, and institutions are at a loss as to how to provide even the smallest of comforts. Clad in a lab gown with a skull for a face, the central figure struts into the scene haughtily, indeterminately plucking out human life, gleeful from all the commotion that ensues. Other ghostlike figures haunt the dejected scenery with its crumbling edifices as nature, undisturbed this time, sprouts its wild tendrils. Santo Entiero laterally cuts the hierarchical perspective, offering no solace. With nothing ever rooted, ordinary people crowd the painting, with no hope for an answer. For instance, a woman holds her household icon aloft as if shielding herself from what it is to transpire. Even the government, represented by symbol of the Malacañang Palace, has lost its bearing, sucked into a vortex. A disconcerting fever dream that visualizes the pandemic as the End of Times, Eden is Emmanuel Garibay’s sprawling chronicle of what has brought to the world to its knees.
