I WILL SPEAK... NO MORE
Jofre Nachor
ACRYLIC, SPRAY PAINT, AND PAINT MARKERS ON PANEL
36” X 48” | 2022
SOLDMORE DETAILS1'S & 0S - IS ALL WE HAVE LEFT
Jofre Nachor
ACRYLIC, SPRAY PAINT, AND PAINT MARKERS ON PANEL
36” X 48” | 2022
AVAILABLEMORE DETAILS
THE PROPHET II (SCULPTURE)
Renato Barja Jr.
HANDMOLD EPOXY, RESIN, ACRYLIC, FOUND OBJECT
6” X 17” | 2022
SOLDMORE DETAILS
We might not know everything about the world, but something is guaranteed: change. Today, it comes ever faster, and with the concept of the technological singularity, change itself becomes a self-sustaining feedback loop that culminates in Artificial Intelligence. Ever since it’s been thought up, people have been wondering what its impact on society will be. And there is a terrifying vision of the future and the center of a years-long online subculture maelstrom. In this exhibit, we explore the visual interpretations of the dehumanizing effects of AI based on thought experiments, hypotheses, and theories of the mergers of humans and robots.
Apotheosis is an online group show about the idea behind the dreadful thought experiment “Roko’s Basilisk”, a virtually all-powerful but rogue AI that would punish every human being who did not contribute to bringing about its existence, including those from the past who merely knew about it and did not support its development. Artists Renato Barja Jr., Jared Yokte, Erik Sausa, and Jofre Nachor scrutinize the phenomenon and dynamic of AI and its global range, where cyberpunk is its literary incarnation. A new alliance or discord is becoming evident: integration of technology and human capabilities that would birth an unholy alliance of the technical world and the world of organized dissent where visionary fluidity and street-level anarchy are rampant.
In one of the works, we are shown a protagonist as he descends into madness and despair while Roko’s Basilisk spawns fear and anxiety. He is embarking on a bleak journey where he encounters this life-negating system. He carries his cross to thwart an amoral society where the future has gone beyond human influence and where the only way to live is in speed, speed to avoid being caught in the web and getting rubbed out by Roko’s Basilisk as new corporate entities are bent on their own self-elaboration. As all hope fades, he turns to spirituality as a final resort while humanity is subsumed by AI.
FEATURED ARTISTS
Jared Yokte
In his amorphous, mythical figures, Filipino contemporary artist Jared Yokte traverses a journey from figurative to formless, spiritual to rural, anthropological to individualistic, from sexual and corporeal to almost abstract. His unique viewpoint on structure, capacity, and representation of intricate lines combine strange visual elements to embody his inward perception that manifests into his own ethereal world. </p> Yokte investigates the emotional content of chromatic expression through schematized line works that often depict catastrophic events or a paradise of spiritual salvation. His fundamental ideas of unifying twisty musculature forms may appear outré but this plays a big part in enabling his astonishing imaginative leap into an unknown yet familiar habitat. And although Yokte’s narrative and visual connections are vivid and original, it is also of its time. While in this period, the artist himself finds the urgency to escape the decay of an urban existence. However, he does not abandon his cultural roots and in his work, he ceaselessly champions the importance of telling a story in the most visually poetic way. </p> Jared Yokte is a Filipino contemporary artist who was born in Davao Oriental but resides in Tarlac. He has had numerous solo and group exhibitions across prominent galleries in Metro Manila such as Blanc Gallery, Vinyl on Vinyl, Art Verite Gallery, Art Fair Philippines, ALT Philippines, and Leon Gallery. He is also the illustrator of the children’s book “Ang Aklatang Pusa” written by renowned writer Eugene E. Vasco. </p> #JaredYokte #lineart #paintings #sculpture #creatures #visualdiary #illustration #everydayness #amorphous #human #animal #mythological #rural #urban #artph #artist #artcollectors #onlineart #contemporaryart #fineart #art_dailydose #artblog #artblogger #filipino #artcollections #artcontemporary #onlineartgallery #contemporaryartists #artphilippines #filipinoartist #artcollectorsofig #contemporaryartph #contemporaryartphilippines #filipinoart #vintana #vintanaph</p>
Renato Barja Jr.
Works that forge close bonds to their studio often display a magnetism that is intimate only to an artist’s impressions of life in both its most prosaic and precious moments. This is what Filipino contemporary artist Renato “Jojo” Barja Jr. 's paintings and sculptures reveal---an extraordinary sort of mercurial vision. They could be melancholy and funny at the same time with an acknowledgment of pending mortality and a hedge against them. It’s almost like finding an old mix tape, playing it, and uncovering bygone days of punk utopianism. There’s also an added bonus of Tim Burtonesque gothic suburbia visuals. </p> Barja’s interaction with his own work are intensive engagements with his subjects as living creatures, what their heads, bodies, expressions, and materials are like as blood, oxygen, light, and emotion circulate through them. They become deep yet fun images to get lost in. Barja’s art constitutes outstanding examples of a deep-rooted self-reflexive tendency in Filipino pedestrian culture. Whether they’re cult, obscure objects, sleeping commuters, a butcher, leaves in decay, or weary workers, they arouse devotion, expectation, fear, and nostalgia. More importantly, his masterfully rendered images are imbued with power that gives rise to numerous tales of reality and illusions. </p> Renato “Jojo” Barja Jr. is a Filipino contemporary artist whose works have been exhibited in multiple prominent galleries and art shows across the Philippines. He has had solo exhibitions in Blanc Gallery and has participated in group shows in Vinyl on Vinyl, Modeka, Secret Fresh, and more. He also released a book entitled “Renato Barja’s Children’s Stories”. </p> #JojoBarja #RenatoBarjaJr #RenatoBarja #paintings #sculpture #artph #artist #resin #oil #artcollectors #onlineart #contemporaryart #fineart #art_dailydose #artblog #artblogger #filipino #timburton #gothicsuburbia #mixtape #artcollections #artcontemporary #onlineartgallery #contemporaryartists #artphilippines #filipinoartist #artcollectorsofig #contemporaryartph #contemporaryartphilippines #filipinoart #vintana #vintanaph</p>
Erik Sausa
Erik Sausa is a Filipino contemporary artist who primarily works on leave out shapes (bare canvas). He often experiments on reflective materials like mirrors, aluminums, water, and used found objects such as discarded stickers, dice, marbles, etc. Sausa also dabbles in acrylic emulsion transfer, a wheat paste type of process or photocopy manipulation that is heavily used in his photographs, paintings, installations, cataloging, and documentation. According to him, the “old school” process that he often applies on his pieces is considered an unfinished thought process. He usually plays on the concept of nostalgia while embracing contemporary motifs. </p> “My approach in art making was all about thought-process and I often delved on re-inventing the subject and materials while I progressively explored my propensity for several years now. And along the way, I still never fully realized how both the process and the concept will be a coherent framework to my stimulus and recurring themes that embodied some of my recent works. And I have to come across relentlessly with these personal pursuits.”</p> Sausa has participated in shows across notable galleries in Metro Manila including West Gallery, Blanc Gallery, and Whitespace Manila. </p>
Jofre Nachor
Jofre Nachor is a full-time multidisciplinary painter whose works are defined by various results of interweaving realism, abstraction, figuration, and neo expressionism. Self taught, he considers himself an outsider heavily influenced by a community of artists in the 1990s called PANDAY PIRA (Pandayan ng Pilipinong Kultura), co-founded by Elmer Borlongan, Mondejar, and other masters of ABAY (Artista ng Bayan) in the Polytechnic University of the Philippines. In 1996, Nachor went on a hiatus to pursue Brand filmmaking and it took over two decades for him to realize his art onto the canvas once again. For him, art has become his salvation from anxiety and depression and centers his work on mental health awareness. </p>
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