How Lovely Is the Silence of Growing Things
MIGUEL PUYAT
July 6 - July 29, 2022
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Miguel Puyat (b. 1993) is an interdisciplinary artist who works with installations, sculptures, drawings, printmaking, ceramics, textile, and new media. His practice embodies the principal focus of Process Art, where the actions and steps in art production are far more important than the form of the object. Puyat explores a range of narratives that hint at existentialism, nostalgia, urban tribes, and subcultures as he examines the transformation, improvisation, and re-configuration of materials, sound, and images. Puyat studied Fine Arts (Painting) at the University of the Philippines, Diliman, and completed an artist residency from Light and Space Contemporary through their LSC-AIR program in 2013.
Known for producing works that evoke sentimentality and tenderness through materiality, Miguel Puyat creates an interactive garden made from carved wood in “How Lovely Is the Silence of Growing Things”. Here, the public is asked to engage in transforming the material from its original state as objects to becoming receptacles of affection and endearment by picking flowers from the installation and walking around the short garden. Through these interactions, the material virtually becomes the life forms it represents: weeds, flowers, and grass. The cultivation arising from such movements becomes the silent force in nurturing the unexpected growth of the installation as more than a room of assembled pieces of wood and eventually becomes a site where the presence of life lives on.
Curated by Gwen Bautista
Selected works from How Lovely Is the Silence of Growing Things
Miguel Puyat, nature is a language, can’t you read, 2022, Distressed paint on wood, found cardboard cutouts, nuts, and bolts, 48 1/8 x 96 1/2 x 1 3/4 in (122 x 245 x 4.5 cm)
Miguel Puyat, wildflower weeds IV, 2022, Distressed paint on wood, nuts and bolts,12 1/4 x 45 1/4 x 3 1/2 in (31 x 115 x 9 cm)
Miguel Puyat, let a flower bloom I, 2022, Distressed paint on wood, nuts and bolts, 15 3/8 x 6 3/4 x 2 3/8 in (39 x 17 x 6 cm)
Miguel Puyat, you lay on the grass along the edge, 2022, Distressed paint on wood, nuts, and bolts, Centre piece: 48 3/8 x 51 1/8 x 3 3/8 in
(123 x 130 x 8.5 cm), Left piece: 48 1/8 x 37 1/8 x 2 in (122 x 94 x 5 cm122 x 94 x 5 cm), Right piece: 48 7/8 x 36 1/4 x 2 in (124 x 92 x 5 cm)
Miguel Puyat, let a flower bloom II, 2022, Distressed paint on wood, nuts and bolts, 19 3/4 x 7 7/8 x 2 in (50 x 20 x 5 cm)
Miguel Puyat, wildflower weeds III, 2022, Distressed paint on wood, nuts and bolts, 7 1/8 x 45 5/8 x 3 1/2 in (18 x 116 x 9 cm)
Miguel Puyat, picking field, 2022, Distressed paint on wood, found cardboard cutouts, nuts, and bolts, 8 1/4 x 33 1/2 x 1 1/8 in each panel (Set of 12), 21 x 85 x 3 cm each panel (Set of 12)