White Walls Gallery Debuts Two New Exhibits for October

Two new exhibits at White Walls Gallery in Makati explore human adaptability through the symbolism of fire and water. The works reflect the duality of hardness and softness within us, and how we navigate these forces in shaping our sense of self.

Forged by Fire

The first exhibit at White Walls Gallery is also the first solo show of its artist, Patty Py. Its theme centers around fire and its role in life as “a catalyst for transformation and a source of illumination.” 

Interestingly, the paintings don’t actually show any sort of fire in the images. Instead, they focus on how fire helps transform objects from one form to another—creating sand from glass, for example. The artist presents its byproducts and the serenity they engender in us. Calm shades of blue and other bright pastel colors reflect the inner calm that exists after a transformative fire. 

Many of the objects featured, from teddy bears to pelicans, have a metallic sheen to them. The teddy bears, in particular, were chosen to juxtapose “their originally soft and fluffy nature with newfound strength.” 

Rediscovering Childlike Innocence

The exhibit write-up elaborates on that point further: “this transformation symbolizes resilience while retaining a sense of childlike wonder and innocence. Despite having faced significant challenges, these teddy bears remain unjaded, embodying a spirit of optimism and playfulness.”

Mostly, the exhibit gives us time to reflect on our hardships, and recharacterize them into the people we’ve become afterwards. The metallic figures are surrounded by flowers and clear blue skies to show that even after the fires, one can find beauty in life afterwards. 

“It serves as a gentle reminder to rest,” the write-up elaborated. “[It acknowledges] the strength required to navigate challenges and the beauty and personal growth that can emerge from these experiences.”

Inner Refractions

For this second exhibit, White Walls Gallery featured paintings from students of the UP School of Fine Arts. Here, it explores the fluidity of transformation, how this willingness to shift perspectives gives us a new layer of ideas to explore. 

“[The students] root from their personal experiences and reflections as they explore and translate how they encounter fluidity in their everyday lives,” the write-up for the exhibit said. 

The paintings simulate different types of fluidity in their works. One painting splits the perspective of a woman, fuzzy on one side and clear on the other. Another painting gives us the look of a melting psychedelic landscape as a person surfs towards a waterfall.

A different series of works, meanwhile, filter the looks of tropical plants in bright yellows and dark blues. It appears to be mimicking over-exposed and under-exposed film strips. All these paintings together portray a daily life that necessitates flexibility towards one’s needs in interacting with the world.  

“They delve into the act of concealing and revealing fragments of the human experience in relation to their observations of the mundane, time, memory, sexuality, nature and the layers of the consciousness.”

Introspective Exhibitions at White Walls Gallery

These two exhibits at White Walls Gallery really run the gamut of what makes us ourselves. It’s never just the harshness of challenges or the softness of beauty. Rather, the exhibits highlight that who we are is not set in stone; that we transform even as we interact with the world around us.

More than that, it removes viewers from passivity by reminding us we can actively use these different parts of ourselves to form something stronger and still uniquely us. It pushes us to be introspective and to allow ourselves to evolve away from stagnancy. As we live through transformative times, we should use that to further deepen our knowledge of ourselves and who we are as people.

Photos by Elle Yap.

Related reading: Focus London 2023 Concluded with White Walls Gallery Zeroing in on Philippine Contemporary Art

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