Art Verité Gallery

Finitude is a field of study and mankind is its scholar. In the absence of the ability to physically test a theory, we turn to the threshold of our minds. One can think of Nic Navarro’s oeuvre in Tila, as an experiment in thought.

The artist guides our sights toward a world now fraught with desolation. We step into wide and vacant grounds that strike us with déjà vu. As we tread closely with our eyes in order to not miss a single detail, we attempt to piece everything together in order to determine where it is that we really are. Navarro initially poses the question, “What meaning shall we choose to make?”

In Navarro’s past work, interior spaces have been made curious and at times surreal to evoke the viewer’s own memories and thoughts. He has mastered subtlety when working with light and incorporating objects into his paintings to form loose connections of meaning that scatter throughout, rather than surfacing a singular interpretation. The exhibition brings both the artist and viewer out into an expansion that ponders on our physical, spiritual, and social milieu. His approach makes space and objects function as clues, whether acting in harmony or dissonance.

The philosophical theory that life is pure chaos and has no inherent meaning, the artist shares, has informed the works in the show. Pondering with and growing the idea in form has allowed him to commence with accumulating visual metaphors which open up a myriad of possibilities, even those that welcome absurdity.

Prologo/Epilogo depicts an underpass in an old city that is still mostly pristine with its aged condition. In a place where we can temporarily take cover—when it rains, for example—we are met with a sparse gathering of allusions to faith and myth in the form of a crown of thorns and cut bamboo, while in the background is a church pew in front of a karaoke machine.

Emerging above ground, we are met with structures in steel and stone. Daang Taong Paghahanap sa Patlang and Ligaw sa Tuwid na Daan reveal functional yet currently desolate terrains. The bleak expanse of land in the latter painting is heavily obstructed, while a lone, tall billboard with the image of a tophat is planted atop of it. The time of day is indecipherable to us, except for an incessant downpour of rain. Hubad and Matagal nang Pumanaw ang Diwatang Taga-gawad ng Hiling contain pockets of unsettling stillness; a halved statue is in the center of a plaza, stripped of its defining features; a fountain is missing its centerpiece while a stone hand holds a book. In these instances, we sense a lawlessness with the departure of what might be heroes and divinities. Bahala shows a footbridge that is deserted yet populated by an array of things being drenched in rain, while a mysterious second level is obscured by an angel’s statue.

The construction of a museum points to what is deemed significant in a certain place. Throughout the stretch of life, we gather and learn signs and symbols, and pick up on what has worked in the past. It is here in the musuem that we can see this collection in a new light. In Ang Pagsasadula Paano Hinihirang ang mga Binditado all the familiar yet not necessarily interconnected things are accounted for as a part of our history.

We encounter the paintings as liminal spaces and we perhaps have missed a major exodus. Navarro emphasizes the windows and doors painted on skies in several works, which he describes as our illusion of freedom. The pewter skies double as concrete walls that stand tall. It becomes apparent that these bleak and inescapable spaces have been molded by the artist in order to reveal an understanding of the human condition. The things we routinely know and what makes sense to us is what cages our existence.

In sparing a moment to imagine our live’s trajectories, Navarro holds steadfast to what Albert Camus once wrote, that “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” As we are systematic in nature, we tend to reject what we do not understand and fear the unknowable. Creating meaning is a means of survival. Although the works might be interpreted somberly as what things appear to be and will end up being in the future, Tila is encouragement and a likening of liminal space to life. It is acceptance rather than resignation that in the absence of a higher purpose, we may find joy in the limits and ephemerality of our journey.

Written by Sarah Conanan