Yavuz Gallery is pleased to present a duo presentation by emerging Filipino artists Miguel Aquilizan and Miguel Uy at S.E.A. Focus 2024, held in parallel to Singapore Art Week.
Living and working within the ecology of Los Baños, Aquilizan mines his practice around ideas that explore mysticism and the occult in connection to natural phenomena. He presents Immaterial at the fair, a sculptural installation that queries into the order of things, contemplating systems of proportions in relation to the natural world. Aquilizan shares that Immaterial is an “act of connecting and reconnecting with nature”.
Where Aquilizan turns to nature, Uy casts his sights on Artifical Intelligence with his Map Fragment series. Generating the three-dimensionality of images to augment what printing or reproduction of images is incapable of achieving, the lifelike quality and crispness in Uy’s imagery as a result of this process further emphasizes his assertion about technology as a powerful tool. Presenting two new paintings at S.E.A. Focus, Uy paints the real and the hyperreal: using the actual brush and using computer software photogrammetry.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Miguel Aquilizan (b. 1986, Philippines), is an artist who works heavily with process and material, exploring threads between ecology, the occult and its histories. His practice is a reflection of his upbringing amid the forest of Mount Makiling of Los Baños, Laguna. Embracing materials gathered in the forest as well as preloved belongings that each carry their own energy and spirits. The entropic forces that run through his practice and studio (deteriorating ceiling and steady decay and growth), unearths there the convergence of historical tones and the forces propelling our increasingly tumultuous natural and human world.
Miguel Lorenzo Uy’s (b. 1993, Philippines) artistic practice follows the phenomena that go with it as well, currently exploring the role and paradoxes of technology, media, and globalisation within the struggles of individuality, identity, and independence. The themes found in his work stem from the society in which he lives in, forming questions that address immediate concerns with regard to (religious) beliefs and conventions, (media) consumption and production, and the volatile possibilities in the future that have yet to unfold. His works shift between different mediums: from painting to photography, sculpture to video, and digital to installation. His 2021 solo exhibition I Am That I Am was shortlisted in the 2021 Ateneo Art Awards Fernando Zobel Prize for Visual Art.
ABOUT THE FAIR
S.E.A. Focus is a leading showcase and art market hub dedicated to Southeast Asian contemporary art. It aims to bring together a fine curation of established and emerging artistic talents to foster a deeper appreciation of contemporary art and artists in the region.
In the realm of information processing, the human brain stands unparalleled in its capacity for parallel multitasking, effortlessly synthesising colour, motion, and form. Conversely, computers, while exacting, operate in a methodical, stepwise manner. As automation continues its trajectory, the implications of Artificial Intelligence surpassing human cognition loom large. What implications arise in such a paradigm? And to what extent would this emergent technology embody our collective history and ethos?
Curated by John Tung, Serial and Massively Parallel presents a curated assembly of regional artworks, each offering profound insights into our intrinsic human identity in the midst of an impending technological confluence.