Art Verité Gallery

Our Homes Are Only As Far As Our Memories

Hidlauon is an exercise in both looking back and walking away. Through his painting of old houses caught in light and shadow, Roland’s artful use of sepia do more than replicate old photographs. They show that he understands how deeply rooted we are to memories of places we have outgrown and people we no longer see. His life in Iloilo allowed him to see both the passage of time and the march of industry. Empty houses here and there were slowly being changed to something more modern. He has seen how growing up means making the difficult decision of moving on. Roland, a 2018 Metrobank Art and Design Excellence awardee, captures that nostalgia where you begin your sentences with, “Naaalala mo pa ba… ? (Do you still remember…?) “ followed by hours and hours of poignant laughter.

In one painting, a bike waits for its rider, who seems to want to take his time saying goodbye to the four walls of what could have been an ancestral house. In fact, it was Roland’s previous apartment, which he shared with his peers while they were still struggling to earn a living. Another painting is of an opulent and proud edifice, standing taller than the maroon bag in the foreground. But size is
all that the old mansion has, for the bag will go elsewhere and find a different home. Once the Yusay-Consing Mansion, it now stands as the Molo Mansion, a tourist destination where events and exhibitions are held as well as having stalls that sell Filipiniana, local delicacies and other island souvenirs. Once we leave our childhood homes and close the door behind us, we in fact make room for others to restore, recover, or create something new.

They say home is where the heart is. If that is true, then we never run out of homes to leave behind… still it also means that we can also keep as many memories of home in our hearts.

– Lexter Victorio