Briccio Santos’ newest sculptures “The Sentinels” at Leon Gallery Worldwide embody auras of protecting pressure
…..storm clouds are right here, from rifts to land
mayhems shall cross not, for right here we keep, steadfast
the Guardians have come
– Briccio Santos, 2024
That is the magical prose Briccio Santos’ writes for his newest exhibition at Leon Gallery Worldwide—an acceptable opening for the multi-hyphenate artist whose works span a large number of artwork mediums.
In various sizes, from reliefs to standing sculptures, artist Briccio Santos (b. 1949) presents a one-man exhibition “The Sentinels” at Leon Gallery Worldwide, Makati from February 13 to 29, 2024. The sixteen items, illuminated with curated lighting by specialists from the Cultural Middle of the Philippines, evoke the types of guardians, conceptualized throughout the difficult interval of the pandemic.
Santos shares on his work,
“After I take a look at it there’s a type of the presence due to the intent itself. There’s a background, a story… I needed to have this amulet to guard us.“
“I really feel these guardians have been a symbolic pressure to counter one thing that’s past human management. I assume there’s a really robust cerebral element to creating this kind. Plus the inventive.”
Sculptures with stylistic camouflage
Throughout the uncertainty of the pandemic, the artist took refuge within the open island areas and recent ocean air of Boracay—a selection that was important to his creative course of. “The Sentinels” have been first conceived within the artists’ out of doors gallery. Product of metallic and coloured with industrial paint, the sculptures started with sketches, then smaller fashions, till evolving into looming varieties.
Santos started his forays into sculptural work in 1978, then within the type of symmetrical wooden. As he transitions into metallic, he states on his present sculptural present, “I went again to this very forcefully throughout the pandemic, after three years of conception.”
As we emerge from the pandemic after three years, the well timed exhibit presents varieties that signify resilience in opposition to the uncontrollable. He describes his motives to create,
“I’m fascinated by varieties that intensify the ineffable, paradoxically from the constructs of actuality…. These authentic constructs, ‘The Sentinels,’ have been created to protect and defend the integrity of place within the context of time.”
Santos displays on how the sculpture displays how our world at this time shifted due to the pandemic,
“It’s complicated in a method as a result of should you take a look at the totally different sides, the profile adjustments—like a camouflage. The pandemic itself was one thing a part of actuality, a floor with out everyone being conscious of its implications. Once they see it at this time it’s like nothing occurred, life continues. However should you actually give it some thought, after two or three years, we’re solely popping out of it now.”
A multi-hyphenate artist
After a number of years in Boracay, Santos has moved to spend extra time in his studio in Cavite. Throughout the excessive ceilings of the transformed warehouse, there’s a classic cream Mercedes Benz W115. In a single nook is the filmmaker’s assortment of previous cameras. He reveals us one digicam he used whereas filming in 1993 in Russia.
Throughout the warehouse is a smaller studio the place the artist refines his brushwork. Easels maintain work of his kinesthetic, multi-dimensional varieties on canvas, echoing types of the early Cubist motion.
Moreover visible work, the artist additionally writes. He reveals us a replica of his 2021 e-book of essays, aphorisms, brief tales, and pictures, “Considering the Ineffable”. He tells us that he’s set to maintain one other exhibit in the summertime at Archivo 1984, a continuation of the e-book that juxtaposes analog and digital images.
The painter, photographer, sculptor, filmmaker, and author is world-renowned for his thematic and avant-garde use of many mediums. I recall seeing his work on the Singapore Artwork Museum, “Heritage Tunnel” in 2018. The tunnel used mirrors that encircled bookshelves, creating the phantasm of an countless tunnel. I recall my shock at seeing the books with titles like “The Younger Marcos” and Rizal’s “El Filibusterismo” solely to search out that the artist was Filipino.
Total, Santos has had 28 solo exhibitions spanning portray, images, and sculpture. To call a couple of, his early work consists of “Chairs” (1976) at Intercon Galleries and “Carnival” (1977) at Ayala Museum, in addition to newer exhibitions resembling “Viral” (2011) at Silverlens Galleries, all the best way to “Speculation” (2018) at Archivo Gallery.
Moreover visible artwork, his contributions to the panorama of movie within the nation have been exceptional. He’s identified for his movies, “Ala Verde, Ala Pobre” (2006), “Ala Suerte, Ala Muerte” (2008) and “Anino ng Setyemre” (2007).
Within the mid-’70s, after getting back from dwelling in Germany for 10 years, he was among the many first artists within the Philippines who pioneered impartial filmmaking with “Damortis” (2005), “When Heaven Wept” (2017), and the documentary “Journey to Insanity” (2005). In 2018, he was honored a serious retrospective of his images and movies in Madrid, Spain, by the Circulo Bellas Artes de Madrid by Casa Asia.
With such achievements in filmmaking, Santos chaired the Movie Improvement Council of the Philippines from 2010 to 2016, selling movie preservation and restoration, until establishing the official Movie Archives mid-tenure. He was additionally knighted as Chevalier dans l’Ordre de la Légion d’Honneur by the French President François Hollande. Moreover a French knighthood, he was additionally given an Italian knighthood in 2016, by the Ordine Della Stella D’Italia by the Italian President. He’s at present the president of the Movie ASEAN Basis.
Regardless of all these accolades, Santos is undoubtedly lowkey, barely mentioning a single achievement.
Whereas describing his time in Munich, Germany, the artist recounts the occasions he snuck blue denims in by way of the Berlin wall. He hints on the nation post-war, filled with free love and legendary nightclubs however not with out its political riots and East German police.
What he does recount intimately is the shortage of expertise on the time. He tells our group, all south of 30, that regardless of these circumstances prior to now, maybe now we’ve got been dealt extra difficulties.
Harkening again to his sculptures at current in Leon Gallery, the artist Briccio Santos tells us,
“This is perhaps for those who may resonate or search aid to really feel protected… like a modern-day summary amulet or anting-anting.”
In our world now filled with distractions and flurry, possibly we want “The Sentinels,” these summary amulets, to guard us greater than ever.
