Silverlens October 10, 2026
Silverlens October 10, 2026
GARY-ROSS PASTRANA
Sign, Signal, Shadow
10 Oct – 13 Nov 2026
Sign, Signal Shadow 1 (Beak), 2026 — geometric orange form with a dark circular “eye” and a dark triangular accent against a pale ground.)*
In attempting to define collage over the years, Gary-Ross Pastrana has fortuitously stumbled upon the evolution of his own practice. The result has become a clear indication of not just forms and images being developed but a kind of language in its own right—his own. One that is communicated through the act of cutting and pasting pieces of paper and, in some cases, a return to painting—either combined with his collage compositions or purely on canvas.
In this latest exhibition he calls *sign, signal, shadow*, he forays deeper into the language collage has created for him in an attempt to seek out what is primal: where it could fundamentally start as a symbol or ‘logos’ before it could possibly speak of something more explicit or determinate. It is, after all, for Pastrana, the beginning of all utterances, of latent sign systems—the attempt to signify something without anything yet definitive to communicate.
But apart from the symbolic and constructivist nature of the exhibition, the collection of works also speak decisively about Pastrana’s commitment to exploring the art of collage. And for whatever kind of language is articulated through the presumed straightforwardness of images and compositions, we could derive from them the different stages through which Gary-Ross Pastrana developed his vision, while reflecting on the show’s own logocentric nature: that although collage is constructed through fragments, everything was once derived from a single thought.
The exhibition takes shape in three strains that branch out from Pastrana’s visual language, namely: False Flags; sign, signal, shadow; and First Forms. Looking closely at these sections provides a deeper understanding of how different approaches give birth to different types of images.
In First Forms, the series is almost exclusively monochromatic. These are collages that are cut from markings on paper using ink. If there seems to be a painted quality in these works, it is precisely because the process primarily begins with random gestures, creating variations of shades through the interaction of ink with water…
The printed text on the photographed flyer cuts off here; the gallery’s longer statement expands on the three series and the influence of graphic design—both deliberate and accidental—in everyday life. Words by Cocoy Lumbao. Venue: Silverlens, Manila.
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**Collation of the works visible in the photographs**
The installation views show a clean, white-walled, concrete-floored gallery with natural and fluorescent light. Works are mostly large-scale framed works on paper (or collage/painting hybrids) and a few small, object-like paintings on canvas or panel.
- **Geometric / “Beak” / arrow forms** (the *sign, signal, shadow* strain proper):
Large vertical works featuring hard-edged, quasi-architectural or logo-like shapes in saturated orange, teal/blue, deep red, and yellow accents against pale or lightly textured grounds. One prominent piece is a large angled form that reads like a stylized beak or arrow (matching the flyer image). Another shows a complex stepped or folded geometric volume in teal, red, and yellow. A multi-panel wall presents four related geometric works in a row, progressing from simpler color-block shapes to more complex layered diagonals and chevron-like motifs.
- Zigzag / chevron staircase form: A large horizontal work with a repeating reddish-brown zigzag or stepped pattern ascending across a pale field—evoking both a diagrammatic signal and a shadow cast by an architectural element.
- Small panel works (likely *False Flags*): Two small, thick, almost sculptural panels hung side-by-side on a gray wall—one a blue field with a yellow-and-red three-dimensional “L” or corner motif, the other a red field with a white horizontal band edged in blue. These have a flag- or banner-like character and a slight three-dimensional projection.
- Diagonal color-block painting: A single vertical canvas divided into blue, white, and pale yellow triangular/wedge shapes separated by a thin red line—spare, modernist, almost flag- or signal-like in its reduction.
- Monochrome / gestural works (the *First Forms* strain): Framed works that appear more densely marked, black-and-white or earth-toned, with denser, almost ink-wash or torn-paper textures (visible in the larger gallery views alongside the geometric pieces). These sit in dialogue with the more hard-edged works.
Visitors are shown standing quietly in front of the larger geometric and zigzag pieces, confirming the contemplative, slow-looking mode the work invites.
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A Critique
Gary-Ross Pastrana’s Sign, Signal, Shadow (Silverlens Manila, 10 October – 13 November 2026) is a mature, restrained, and intellectually elegant return to the collagist side of a practice long known for conceptual object transformations. Where earlier works often staged material metamorphoses (rings into sword, ladder into bird, boat into fragments), this exhibition turns the cut itself into a philosophical and linguistic act. Collage here is no longer primarily about rupture or the surreal juxtaposition of found images; it is about the birth of a private visual language—logos before discourse.
The three interlocking series—First Forms, False Flags, and the titular Sign, Signal, Shadow—map a continuum from pure gesture to symbolic structure to something that hovers between flag, logo, and shadow. First Forms begins closest to the origin myth of mark-making: ink on paper, water, chance, then the decisive cut. These works retain a residual “painted” quality precisely because the process is still wet, still accidental; the cut merely harvests the accident. They feel like the primal vocabulary—proto-signs that have not yet decided what they mean.
The False Flags small panels operate in a different register. Their compact scale, slight three-dimensionality, and flag-like heraldry introduce the idea of the sign as something that can be raised, claimed, or misread. The blue “L” and the red-white-blue band are neither national flags nor pure abstraction; they occupy the ambiguous zone of the false or provisional signal—markers that announce without fully specifying allegiance or meaning. They are, in a sense, the political or social underside of the more purely formal works.
The core *sign, signal, shadow* works are the most compelling. The large geometric pieces—especially the orange “beak” with its dark circular eye and the complex teal-red-yellow folded form—function like logos that have been partially melted or partially eclipsed. They retain the sharp, hard-edged clarity of graphic design (Pastrana has long been attentive to both intentional and accidental graphic languages in everyday life) while allowing the cut edge and the layered paper to introduce a soft, almost spectral quality. The “shadow” of the title is both literal (the overlapping planes create internal shadows) and metaphorical: the sign is always haunted by what it fails to say, by the latent system that precedes determinate meaning.
What is striking is the refusal of pure constructivism. Although the compositions are rigorously geometric, they never feel diagrammatic or didactic. The pale grounds retain the memory of the paper’s surface; occasional textural irregularities and the slight translucency of layered collage keep the works from becoming pure design. This is collage as a form of delayed signification—an attempt, as the text puts it, “to signify something without anything yet definitive to communicate.” In a contemporary visual culture saturated with logos, emojis, and algorithmic signals, Pastrana’s works slow the viewer down, forcing a confrontation with the gap between the urge to mean and the actual achievement of meaning.
The exhibition also quietly continues Pastrana’s long-standing dialogue with Philippine modernism and conceptualism (the lineage of Roberto Chabet is never far). The hard edges and reduced palette recall Arturo Luz and the geometric abstraction of the mid-century, yet the process-oriented, paper-based method and the emphasis on the cut keep the work firmly in the conceptual present. The return to painting (or painting-as-collage) is not a retreat from conceptual rigor but an expansion of it: the brush or the ink wash becomes another form of “found” mark that is then subjected to the same decisive editorial act as any printed fragment.
Installation is characteristically understated. The works are given generous space; the white cube does not compete. The small False Flags on the gray wall create a moment of intimate scale against the larger, more architectural pieces. The overall effect is of a private alphabet slowly being assembled—letter by letter, cut by cut—rather than a finished manifesto.
If there is a limitation, it is that the works’ restraint can tip into coolness. The emotional temperature remains low; the “shadow” is more intellectual than psychological. Yet this coolness is also the source of their strength. In an art world that often rewards spectacle or explicit identity narratives, Pastrana’s quiet insistence on the pre-linguistic, the provisional, and the purely formal feels almost radical. Sign, Signal, Shadow does not shout. It simply holds open the space in which a sign might begin to appear—before it is named, before it is claimed, before it becomes definitive. That is a rare and valuable achievement.
Gary-Ross Pastrana: Sign, Signal, Shadow
Silverlens, Manila, 10 October – 13 November 2026
Gary-Ross Pastrana’s latest solo exhibition at Silverlens is a quiet, exacting meditation on the origins of visual language. Long known for conceptual object transformations, Pastrana here returns to collage with renewed philosophical focus. The show treats the cut not as rupture or surreal juxtaposition, but as the primal act of signification itself—the moment a mark begins to mean something before it has decided what.
The exhibition unfolds across three interlocking series: *First Forms*, *False Flags*, and the titular *sign, signal, shadow*. *First Forms* presents near-monochrome collages harvested from ink-and-water gestures on paper. These works retain a residual painted quality; chance and fluidity still linger in the marks before the decisive cut isolates them. They feel like a private alphabet in its earliest stage—proto-signs still wet with possibility.
The small *False Flags* panels shift the register. Compact, slightly sculptural, and heraldic in character, they occupy the ambiguous zone between abstraction and provisional signal. A blue field with a yellow-and-red corner motif, a red panel crossed by a white band edged in blue: these are neither national flags nor pure geometry. They suggest markers that can be raised, claimed, or misread—signs whose allegiance remains deliberately unresolved.
The core works of *sign, signal, shadow* are the most compelling. Large vertical compositions feature hard-edged geometric forms in saturated orange, teal, deep red, and yellow against pale grounds. One prominent piece reads like a stylized beak or arrow with a dark circular eye; others unfold as complex folded or stepped volumes. A large zigzag or chevron sequence marches across another field like a diagrammatic staircase or a cast shadow. These pieces retain the clarity of graphic design while allowing layered paper and internal shadows to introduce a spectral softness. They function as logos that have been partially eclipsed—signs that announce without fully specifying.
What distinguishes the exhibition is its refusal of pure constructivism. Although rigorously geometric, the works never feel diagrammatic. Pale grounds preserve the memory of the paper’s surface; slight textural irregularities keep them from hardening into pure design. In a visual culture saturated with logos, emojis, and algorithmic signals, Pastrana slows the viewer down, insisting on the gap between the urge to mean and the achievement of meaning. The “shadow” of the title is both literal and conceptual: every sign is haunted by what it fails to say.
The installation is characteristically understated. Works receive generous space in the white cube; the small *False Flags* create an intimate counterpoint to the larger architectural pieces. The overall effect is of a private visual language being assembled letter by letter rather than declared as finished manifesto.
If the exhibition has a limitation, it is its coolness. Emotional temperature remains low; the inquiry is intellectual rather than psychological. Yet this restraint is also its strength. In a moment that often rewards spectacle or explicit narrative, Pastrana’s quiet insistence on the pre-linguistic and the provisional feels almost radical. *Sign, signal, shadow* does not shout. It simply holds open the space in which a sign might begin to appear—before it is named, before it is claimed, before it becomes definitive.
Gary-Ross Pastrana
Liv Vinluan: Soft, Incandescent Rage
Silverlens Galleries, Manila
10 October – 13 November 2026
Key Exhibition Texts
Title wall / flyer header
LIV VINLUAN
SOFT, INCANDESCENT RAGE
10 OCT – 13 NOV 2026
Curatorial wall text (Lara Atkin)
Historically documented as an aberration and a manifestation of a form of psychosis, an angry housewife was – more commonly then, but still, deceptively, now – perceived as something that must be attended to in the same manner as a domestic appliance in need of repair; the household’s functionality rests, inevitably, on theirs.
Liv Vinluan looks at the interstitial, fragile moments that allow for a house, prone to falling apart, to hold its forbearance. Through the amalgamation of tropes of womanliness, marriage, motherhood, family devotion, and an infrastructure that keeps them evergreen, Liv creates exquisite aberrations of what she names “peculiar expectations.” Symbols of pregnancy, homemaking, and eternal caregiving – phenomena unique to women – hold the weight of these expectations.
The work’s hidden reinforcements allow it to reconstruct a coherent image – a conceit that is evident, although sometimes not as invisibly, across the works in the exhibition. Liv writes: “the intimate, domestic sphere is a central site where colonial power is made and remade (again and again and again).” In soft, incandescent rage this making and remaking works towards their gradual reclamation. It is the artist’s bid to reclaim space for herself and others who desire to give shape and form to the conditions of femininity which, today, remain besieged by latter-day colonizers.
— Lara Atkin
Extended flyer text (“A Home under Duress”)
Historically documented as an aberration and a manifestation of a form of psychosis, an angry housewife was – more commonly then, but still, deceptively, now – perceived as something that must be attended to in the same manner as a domestic appliance in need of repair; the household’s functionality rests, inevitably, on theirs.
Liv Vinluan looks at the interstitial, fragile moments that allow for a house, prone to falling apart, to hold its forbearance. Through the amalgamation of tropes of womanliness, marriage, motherhood, family devotion, and an infrastructure that keeps them evergreen, Liv creates exquisite aberrations of what she names “peculiar expectations.” Symbols of pregnancy, homemaking, and eternal caregiving – phenomena unique to women – hold the weight of these expectations.
What happens then to their bodies? Fragmented and merged into fluted columns, chandeliers, and symmetrical baroque fountains, they are found in the ornate foliage and graceful tendrils of these architectural enhancements. The Corinthian capital, whose likenesses, especially in *So tell me, how do you spell motherhood?*, becomes a stand-in for the figure of the model homemaker. Described by the Roman architect Vitruvius as an unusual invention born of the death of a young woman, the highly decorative column is both soft light and imperturbable pillar of strength; glowing, loadbearing keeper of dwellings.
This fragmentation is pursued more explicitly in Bb. Simplicia Saguil, which takes its cue from a sobering quote attributed to Hena Saguil, singular artist of mystical abstraction, in response to why she never married: “If I am whole, I am single. If I am married, I am half.” Essentially a wedding portrait, sliced into equal parts and cleaved apart at the seams in the middle like an unzipped jacket, it is dominated by a central orb, the collapse of a star…
Artwork identifications from installation views
- Bb. Simplicia Saguil, 2026: large multi-panel oil painting (irregular diamond and rectangular panels) arranged to form a torso-like silhouette of a bride and groom; white wedding attire, veil, lilies, dark foliage, earthen path; crowned by a black circular form with yellow-to-red rim.
- Horizontal long work: landscape in which the letters of MATERNITY are constructed from houses, figures, paths, trees, and architectural elements.
- Large wall installation of multiple wooden shadow-box frames (diamond/cross configuration): delicate drawings (watercolor, gouache, graphite) of chandeliers, hanging beads/drops, fishnet grids with red ribbons, urns with trailing plants, orchids and tendrils.
- Small framed painting (above title wall): equestrian figure.
Collation and Relation of Works
The exhibition coheres around a single conceptual engine: the “angry housewife” historically pathologized as aberration or appliance malfunction, re-examined as a site of soft, glowing, continuous rage. Vinluan literalizes the fragmentation of the female subject under the weight of “peculiar expectations” (marriage, motherhood, perpetual caregiving) and then reconstitutes that fragmentation into decorative, architectural, and botanical forms that both mask and sustain the domestic structure.
- Bb. Simplicia Saguil is the exhibition’s emotional and formal centerpiece. The wedding portrait is physically cleaved—panels pulled apart like an unzipped garment—yet still readable as a single figure. The central black orb (collapsed star) sits where the heart or head might be, a cosmic or psychic rupture. The quote attributed to Hena Saguil (“If I am whole, I am single. If I am married, I am half”) supplies the conceptual hinge: marriage as subtraction rather than completion.
- The *MATERNITY* landscape translates the same logic into language itself. The word is not written but built—letterforms become dwellings, paths, and human figures—so that the concept of maternity is inseparable from the architecture of duty and landscape of labor.
- The multi-panel botanical/architectural drawings function as the “ornate foliage and graceful tendrils” described in the text. Chandeliers, Corinthian-inspired urns, nets, and flowering plants absorb the body that has been disassembled. These are the “hidden reinforcements” that allow the house (and the image) to hold. Soft color, delicate line, and elegant framing produce the “soft, incandescent” surface under which the rage smolders.
- The small equestrian painting and the title wall itself operate as historical anchors or quiet counterpoints, linking personal domestic inquiry to longer genealogies of power, representation, and colonial residue.
A Critique
Vinluan’s return to solo exhibition after several years (and her first solo with Silverlens) is marked by a refined, research-saturated maturity. The work continues her long-standing interest in cyclical histories, mortality, and the inconsistencies of human character, but narrows the aperture to the intimate domestic sphere as a primary theater of colonial and patriarchal power—made and remade “again and again and again.”
Formally, the exhibition is elegant and controlled. The diamond/cross arrangements and irregular polyptych panels create a visual rhythm of rupture and provisional coherence. The drawings are exquisite: botanical precision meets speculative ornament, echoing Vinluan’s earlier engagements with colonial botanical illustration (*Flora de Filipinas*) while refusing pure taxonomic order. The paintings of the bridal couple are lush yet slightly uncanny—white lilies and veils against dark green, the ground an ochre path that feels both ceremonial and uncertain.
The conceptual risk is real and productive. By insisting that the “angry housewife” was (and is) pathologized rather than heard, Vinluan refuses the easy contemporary valorization of “rage” as pure liberation. Instead she situates rage as incandescent—glowing from within, soft in its surface, structural in its necessity. The Corinthian capital as stand-in for the model homemaker is particularly sharp: an architectural element born, according to Vitruvius, from the death of a young woman, now load-bearing, decorative, and eternally available. The body is not simply represented; it is metabolized into the very supports of the home.
There is a quiet feminist lineage here that runs through Philippine art history (the reference to Hena Saguil) and broader discourses of gendered labor, without descending into didacticism. The works do not shout; they seethe. The beauty is not redemptive so much as diagnostic: the same ornamental systems that aestheticize women’s labor also make that labor visible when the surface is carefully examined.
If there is a limitation, it is the density of reference. Viewers unfamiliar with Vitruvius, with the specific quote attributed to Saguil, or with Vinluan’s earlier botanical and historical projects may experience the work primarily as atmospheric rather than fully articulated. Yet the visual intelligence of the installation—especially the large bridal polyptych and the wall of framed drawings—carries sufficient affective force on its own.
Soft, Incandescent Rage is a precise, melancholic, and ultimately reclamation-oriented exhibition. It treats the domestic as neither pure sanctuary nor pure prison, but as a charged, historically sedimented site where the self is continually braided and unraveled. Vinluan gives form to the conditions of femininity under pressure and, in doing so, begins the slow work of reclaiming the space those conditions have long occupied.
Liv Vinluan
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Amiel Gerald A. Roldan™' s connection to the Asian Cultural Council (ACC) serves as a defining pillar of his professional journey, most recently celebrated through the launch of the ACC Global Alumni Network.As a 2003 Starr Foundation Grantee, Roldan participated in a transformative ten-month fellowship in the United States. This opportunity allowed him to observe contemporary art movements, engage with an international community of artists and curators, and develop a new body of work that bridges local and global perspectives.Featured Work: Bridges Beyond Borders His featured work, Bridges Beyond Borders: ACC's Global Cultural Collaboration, has been chosen as the visual identity for the newly launched ACC Global Alumni Network.Symbol of Connection: The piece represents a private collaborative space designed to unite over 6,000 ACC alumni across various disciplines and regions.Artistic Vision: The work embodies the ACC's core mission of advancing international dialogue and cultural exchange to foster a more harmonious world.Legacy of Excellence: By serving as the face of this initiative, Roldan's art highlights the enduring impact of the ACC fellowship on his career and his role in the global artistic community.Just featured at https://www.pressenza.com/2026/01/the-asian-cultural-council-global-alumni-network-amiel-gerald-a-roldan/
He is a Filipino multidisciplinary visual artist, printmaker, painter, independent curator, researcher, writer, and cultural worker whose practice spans contemporary art, curatorial work, and cultural advocacy. He has been active in the Philippine art scene since the late 1990s and has worked with galleries, museums, artist-run spaces, and international cultural organizations.
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A multidisciplinary Filipino artist, poet, researcher, and cultural worker whose practice spans painting, printmaking, photography, installation, and writing. He is deeply rooted in cultural memory, postcolonial critique, and in bridging creative practice with scholarly infrastructure—building counter-archives, annotating speculative poetry like Southeast Asian manuscripts, and fostering regional solidarity through ethical art collaboration.
He has been active in the Philippine art scene since the late 1990s and has worked with galleries, museums, artist-run spaces, and international cultural organizations.His practice appears to represent several interconnected concerns:
Cultural work as artistic practice. Roldan has argued that the labor of curating, organizing exhibitions, teaching, documentation, and cultural administration should be understood as creative work rather than merely support work. This perspective has been reflected in his writings and exhibitions.
Social and political engagement. His artworks frequently address politics, religion, faith, denial, courage, social inequality, and the everyday experiences of Filipinos. He has stated that he draws inspiration from Filipino cultural practices while approaching painting, printmaking, and installation from a conceptual perspective.Printmaking and conceptual art. Roldan is particularly recognized for his printmaking, with works shown internationally, including exhibitions in Japan and France. His practice also encompasses painting, photography, installation, and curatorial research.International cultural exchange. A significant milestone in his career was receiving an Asian Cultural Council fellowship in 2003, which enabled him to undertake research and create work in the United States while engaging with artists and curators internationally.
More broadly, Roldan's work represents an attempt to bridge artistic production, curatorial practice, scholarship, and cultural activism . His writings often emphasize postcolonial discourse, cultural memory, and the ethics of artistic collaboration, positioning the artist not only as a maker of objects but also as a builder of cultural infrastructure.
In the Philippine contemporary art context, he can be understood as representing the figure of the artist-curator-cultural worker —someone who contributes both through making artworks and through developing exhibitions, mentoring artists, and fostering institutional and independent cultural initiatives.
Recent show at ILOMOCA
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