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‘Spirit Ecologies’: Catalina Africa Creates a Personal Portrait of Nature
For Spirit Ecologies, artist Catalina Africa explores her ever-deepening and complicated relationship with nature. The artist relocated to Baler from Metro Manila as a way of seeking a peaceful existence. Through this exhibit, she found herself reflecting on her experiences a decade after that decision.
Her move to Baler appears to have forced her to redefine the meaning of community. Society tends to focus on the people that we surround ourselves with. Africa, however, found herself focusing more on the environment around her. This new exhibit in West Gallery finds her visually representing these ideas on canvas.
“I began to feel insecure and worried about who my community was, and then I realized that community doesn’t necessarily have to refer to humans—my community is my developed relationship with the land. The plant beings, the elements are my community. I refer to all of [them] as spirits… and the works in the show are my effort to connect with the land,” Africa is quoted as saying in the exhibit write-up.
Our Relationships With The Land
Spirit Ecologies contains eight different paintings from Catalina Africa, including four major pieces in large canvases. Every work utilizes curving lines to suggest a certain wavy balance to the surroundings being shown. Lots of green and violets abound in the work, mixing with the wavy-ness to give off a sense of spirituality to the works.
The presentation allows for some interactivity with the audience. Curved vines seem to sprout out of many of the paintings in the exhibit. At times, they even spill out and overwhelm the barriers of the canvas.
It presents itself like this as an apparent extension of the idea central to Africa’s exhibit. The artist wants to show off the environment as active living entities, and her role as essentially a conduit that communicates the needs of the environment out to the people.
“Catalina Africa’s art mirrors an intimate and deepening relationship with nature, and highlights her role as a vessel for spirits to reveal themselves through her creations. Africa refers to her works as ‘inner landscapes,’ as a way of honoring the wisdom and gifts from the natural world,” Timmy Potenciano’s exhibit write-up said.
Nature in Our Hearts
Something like “practicing starlight vision/creating my own cosmologies” appears as a spiraling of multiple worlds connecting as one within the paintings, mimicking religious drawings of chakras and the like to make its point.
Others, like “merging auras / plant bodies” exist as personifications of the nature around us. The painting shows off what appears to be the spirit of a person vibrating out of a central organism in the middle. Potenciano writes that the exhibit evokes the Flower of Life in its imagery. It was also inspired by a real-life tree in the artist’s home.
“In the solar plexus of the humanoid figure is a glowing tree; a homage to the dangkalan or bitaog tree in the artist’s home. The tree has often been a subject of Africa’s paintings, and is symbolic of her ongoing study of plant spirit medicine,” they wrote.
Heightened Consciousness
The title painting of the exhibit, “spirit ecologies (tree of life),” vividly pulses with life as Catalina Africa depicts the same bitaog tree in her home. Sunlight appears to the sides of the tree in the center in swirls of violet and yellow, all while the leaves of the tree dance in a seemingly-explosive sprawl.
“When looking at the painting, the bright colors and brushstrokes sing with life-giving wisdom. From its roots, curling lines of energy extend upwards to the tree’s canopy, symbolizing that the tree is alive and well,” Potenciano wrote.
Spirit Ecologies gives us a joyful depiction of heightened consciousness from the plants and nature around us. The artwork of Catalina Africa accentuates the spiritual connection of plants to our own selves. This expands our sense of community to include all living things around us, hoping to find serenity in this togetherness.
Spirit Ecologies will be open at West Gallery until January 4.
Photos by Elle Yap.
Related reading: ‘Eyes Closed’: Nunzio Paci Dissects Humanity and Nature’s Relationship
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Frequently Asked Questions
Spirit Ecologies is a West Gallery exhibition of eight paintings by Catalina Africa, including four large-canvas works, that explores her deepening relationship with nature. It ran until January 4, 2025, and reflects on the decade since she relocated from Metro Manila to Baler.
Africa redefines community to include her relationship with the land rather than only people. She refers to plant beings and the elements as spirits, and the paintings are her effort to connect with the land, extending the viewer’s sense of community to all living things.
The works use curving lines to suggest a wavy balance in their surroundings, with abundant greens and violets that give a sense of spirituality. Curved vines appear to sprout from many paintings and at times spill past the canvas edges, allowing some interactivity with viewers.
The bitaog, also called dangkalan, is a tree in Africa’s home that recurs as a subject in her paintings and symbolizes her ongoing study of plant spirit medicine. It appears as a glowing tree in the humanoid figure of “merging auras / plant bodies” and in the title painting, “spirit ecologies (tree of life).”
According to the exhibit write-up by Timmy Potenciano, Africa refers to her works as “inner landscapes,” honoring the wisdom and gifts of the natural world. It frames her as a vessel through which spirits reveal themselves, communicating the environment’s needs to people.
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