Spectral Labors: The Ontology of the Unseen by Amiel Roldan

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"Spectral Labors: The Ontology of the Unseen" 

Written by Amiel Roldan   


This series of paintings interrogates the liminality of cultural workers through a dialectical interplay of presence and erasure, invoking Amiel Roldan’s praxis of socio-political critique (https://kulay-diwa.com/artists/amiel-roldan/ "1"). 

The compositions manifest as palimpsestic layers of spectral figuration, where laboring bodies dissolve into the semiotic abyss—an epistemic rupture that destabilizes hegemonic narratives of artistic production.    

Drawing from Roldan’s engagement with mass prints and installations[](https://kulay-diwa.com/artists/amiel-roldan/ "1"), the series employs a visual syntax of dissonance: fragmented iconographies, obfuscated gestures, and interstitial voids that articulate the paradox of visibility within cultural economies. 

The chromatic schema oscillates between muted sepia tones—evoking archival residues—and incendiary hues that signify resistance, mirroring the dialectics of faith and faithlessness in Roldan’s oeuvre.   

Through an esoteric lexicon of abstraction and conceptual layering, "Spectral Labors" seeks to transmute the unseen toil of cultural workers into an ontological presence, rendering their labor not as peripheral but as the sine qua non of artistic existence.  


Amiel Gerald Roldan

May 26, 2025


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