18 June - 18 July 2024
Crease on the Fold
Kris Carlos, Lena Cobangbang, Potti Lesaguis, Jepren Solis, Tanya Villanueva
Featuring “Cultivating A Garden” by Zeus Bascon
Curated by Denver Garza
Drawing from the Visual Merchandise Project of Zeus Bascon’s “Cultivating a Garden,” works by artists steering against the divide between the agencies of exhibitions and the bazaars are gathered in “Crease on the Fold.” Curated and organized by Denver Garza in collaboration with Bascon, Kris Carlos, Lena Cobangbang, Potti Lesaguis, Jepren Solis, and Tanya Villanueva, the show is an opportunity to look into the economics of arts and craft bazaars and their contradictions with the art world market. It is an open invitation and an exercise of engagement to assess collectively the power and hold of the platforms and spaces we navigate; and the potency of art as financial instruments that pervade its context as invaluable human activity.
I don't recognize my hands anymore , 2024, Resin and brass, 7 1/8 x 5 1/2 x 5 1/8 in (18 x 14 x 13 cm)
Kris Carlos (b.1985) started her smithing journey in 2018 when she took Basic Silversmithing and Metal Etching classes under Studio 925. Her jewelry designs are intricate and bold while maintaining their minimalistic appearance. Her work in this exhibition is a tribute to her hardworking hands, now constantly plagued by dirt, cuts, burns, and scars, with deformed fingers beyond repair. Carlos recalls, "I used to have lovely hands; some even said they looked like candles. But I think that's the price I pay to create beautiful things. Smithing has made my hands unrecognizable, but I know the work they've done, and I'm excited about what they'll be able to do in the future."
The piece I don't recognize my hands anymore is made with resin and brass. Its crown is produced from brass scraps, pieces that cut and splinter and make one bleed. The work is also symbolic of turning a piece of metal from "nothing" into something else. She also maintained the patina that metal gets after it has been heated and soldered, a nod to the theme of "Crease on the Fold".
Lena Cobangbang (b.1976) studied Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines in Diliman. Her work is broad-ranging, moving across video, installation, and found objects to embroidery, cookery, performance, and photography. Integral to her art practice is collaboration with other artists, such as with Yasmin Sison under the created fictional identity of Alice and Lucinda and with Mike Crisostomo as The Weather Bureau. Apart from making art, she writes and works as an independent curator. A part of the seminal artist collective Surrounded By Water, her art practice extends to doing art administration and exhibit organizing, having been a fellow at the 2008 HAO Summit for emerging artists, curators, and art managers in Asia in Singapore in 2008 and has undergone an artist/curator research residency exchange between Green Papaya Art Projects and Pekarna Magdalenske Mreže in Maribor, Slovenia in 2010. She was also part of the touring exhibit Bastards of Misrepresentation, curated by Manuel Ocampo, which has been held in Berlin, Hamburg, Bangkok, and New York, and the Manila Vice show in Sete, France. In 2005, she was nominated for the 3rd Ateneo Art Awards. She received the Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists Award in 2006 and was one of the participating artists in the 2008 Singapore Biennale. She was part of a residency program hosted by Langgeng Art Foundation in Jogjakarta in 2016 and is a participant in the first Manila Biennale in 2018.
Artist TMI Book, 2024, Zine, 8 1/4 x 5 7/8 in (21 x 15 cm)
Fair Weather, 2024, Plant markings, textile, textile paint, burlap, thread and acrylic on canvas, 36 x 36 in (91.4 x 91.4 cm)
Potti Lesaguis (b.1989) often uses textiles and other non-traditional materials in her practice. She explores themes linked to cosmology and maternal energy. Images of plants and objects from her immediate surroundings are usually found in her works, which are realized through craft-making techniques such as dyeing and sewing. For “Crease on the Fold,” Lesaguis presents a mixed media work containing plant markings on burlap. The piece was made from materials for her dressmaking practice, and while in production, she was introduced to the no.18 needle, an instrument that can work with thick materials. Lesaguis was featured in several group and solo exhibitions at different art spaces, including the UP Fine Arts Gallery, Artinformal Greenhills, Underground Gallery, and Blanc Gallery. She is the co-founder of the artist-run space Sampaguita Projects in Quezon City.
Side, 2024, Collected cutouts from OOS-Zine in a Glass dome, 4 3/8 (diameter) x 7 7/8 in (height) (11 diameter x 20 cm height)
Jepren Solis (b.1990) focused on illustrations, paintings, and performance art before transitioning to his image-based practice. His works capture day-to-day experiences and document the ephemeral. Heavily influenced by graphic design, Solis reflects on the dynamic nature of memories and the process of remembering, where some details are lost or altered each time a memory is revisited. He received a degree in Multimedia Arts from the Asia Pacific College and launched several self-published zines and artist books. Apart from exhibitions in Manila, his works were featured in exhibitions and lectures in Berlin, The Hague, and Rome.
How Ideas Die, 2024, Amateur gyotaku print, 14 x 20 in (35.6 x 50.8 cm)
Tanya Villanueva (b.1983) is a 40-year-old artist born in Valenzuela, Philippines. Her works have been shown locally at institutions, commercial contemporary galleries, and artist-run spaces. She had various art projects outside the county through artist-run spaces in Queens, San Francisco, Kyoto, Canada, New York, and most recently in Germany as part of her residency at Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart. An important part of her work today involves ongoing collaborations with her artist peers on making time to unlearn systemic injustices and creating new structures to further expand art as a cultural phenomenon as well as a language that fits our local and contemporary times. She is the current main coordinator of ArtSchoolNow Salon- a slow-building community project that hopes to find a way to queer art learning and artmaking by making art a form of community service. She is a single mother to a 21-year-old child who is also her primary collaborator in her current art practice. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Philippines with an award for Outstanding Degree Exhibition for her final thesis in 2008. She also finished Dressmaking at Miriam College in 2018 and Basic Hairdressing at David’s Salon Academy. Her work as a visual artist is guided by the fact that art has always been perched on the idea of excess, all the while living in a condition of lack.
Cultivating a Garden is a project of artist Zeus Bascon that aims to develop a local creative ecology in Laguna, a project for the M:ST 10 artist residency program in Canada, co-presented by Stride Gallery and Kamias Special Projects (July 2021 - July 2022)
Featuring Cultivating A Garden by Zeus Bascon, 2023, Zine
About the Curator
Denver Garza (b. 1987) uses painting, assemblage, and fabric to create art that reflects his interest in philosophy. Referencing different psychological frameworks, Garza believes that social rituals and interactions shape the identity of our society. His intricate works present visual phenomenologies that explore and analyze modern behavior. He works primarily with textiles and extends his practice to drawing, painting, poetry, and other experimental formats. He facilitates community workshops geared towards self-awareness and mindfulness as part of an approach to contemporary art that links forms of expression with spiritual bearings. Garza was featured in the 2023 edition of CIMB Artober Art Fair in Kuala Lumpur. He is the founding organizer of MONO8’s “Talipaparty”, an annual collaboration with art communities to promote workshops, zines, independent publications, merch, grassroots art practices, and everything else. In arts and crafts bazaars, you’ll find Garza through his everybyslowtear project.
Selected Works from Crease on the Fold
Tanya Villanueva, "How Ideas Die", 2024 (Preview)
Zeus Bascon, Featuring Cultivating A Garden by Zeus Bascon, 2023, Zine
Lena Cobangbang, Artist TMI Book, 2024, Zine 8 1/4 x 5 7/8 in (21 x 15 cm)
Lena Cobangbang, Art Scenery vol. 2, 2024, Zine, 11 3/4 x 8 1/4 in (29.7 x 21 cm), Edition of 6
Jepren Solis, Liners, 2024, Collected cutter blades, 4 3/8 (diameter) x 7 7/8 (height) in, 11 (diameter) x 20 (height) cm