Mind Set Art Center is delighted to present a solo exhibition by Patricia Perez Eustaquio “Conversation Among Ruins” from 2nd of June to 14th of July 2018. This is the second solo exhibition Mind Set Art Center holds for Eustaquio following her “Figure Babel” in 2014.

Eustaquio is a multimedia artist, whose practice integrates painting, drawing, textile and sculpture. Taking an object-based perspective, Eustaquio examines ideas of vanity and vanitas, the trivial and the sublime, while also exploring the possibilities and limits of artistic expression through various forms.

Eustaquio’s second solo exhibit in the gallery centers on Conversation Among Ruins, a tapestry that the artist worked on for several months, reflecting on the painting, Cleopatra (or, Death of Cleopatra) by Juan Luna, painted in 1881 while the renowned artist was studying fine arts in Spain. Luna's painting mirrors complex issues that Eustaquio herself has been exploring in her own practice: questions of ownership and authenticity, identity, and cultural appropriation. For this tapestry, Eustaquio maps out the central image of Luna’s painting into blocks of color, replacing and reappropriating Luna's image with readymade images of paint. The entire image was then stripped of color, rendered monochromatic, translated like a photograph, and fed into a digital loom. She said: “There are many things lost in translation, but I think, many could be gained, too. Each subsequent translation lends to a deterioration of the original context, a kind of entropy as one form becomes another. (B)ut the muddling of information could provide a perspective that is unique, if not interesting.”

A number of works on paper is shown alongside this exhibition. Furthering her interests in texture, fragments, shapes and craft, Eustaquio integrates history, memories or allusions to create rock-like formations with graphite. Featuring craggy shapes and rich details, these objects float in blankness, accompanied by contrasting fragments of gold leaf. Through depicting details of paint drops and other objects, Eustaquio constructs a narrative on decay and detritus: once glorious, now reveals the potential of trivial things, and gives an unexpected nod to the ordinary.

Patricia Perez Eustaquio (b. 1977) is based in Manila, where she is considered one of the leading Filipino artists of her generation. Notions of craft and design are central to her practice, and she makes use of a wide variety of materials such as fabric, wood, metal, rattan, glass and resin to explore their expressive possibilities and their role in cultural production.

Her work has been featured in museums and galleries internationally, including the Singapore Biennale and a site-specific installation commissioned by Palais de Tokyo in Paris, France both in 2016. She was awarded the Thirteen Artists Award from the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 2009, and the Art Omi Residency in Ghent, New York in 2010.