SILVERLENS continues to bring Filipino art into dialogue with the global art landscape by taking part in Art Dubai’s Online Catalogue. The gallery presents important works by contemporary artists Pio Abad, James Clar, and Nicole Coson that challenge history, perception, and technique.

London-based artist Pio Abad shows My dear, there are always people who are just a little faster, more brilliant, and more aggressive IV (2016), which is a unique acid dye print on hand-stitched silk twill. Abad illustrates a graphic scene alluding to former first lady Imelda Marcos’ attempt to change the world’s view of the Philippines by manipulating the media at the height of Martial Law. This piece is reflective of Abad’s practice as a whole, creating critical works focusing on social inequality, corruption, and the manipulation of truth.

New York-based artist James Clar is interested in the narrative potential of light and technology. After having spent five years in Dubai, Clar began creating light displays that touch upon how media and technology can affect our perceptions of culture, nationality, and identity. Taking a ride with my best friend (2019) is composed of a car door and a controlled laser that follows a generative pattern. This piece is a visualization of daydreaming as you go for a car ride and stare out the window. Clar’s A New Dawn (2019) depicts the sun rising and clearing the morning fog using LED lights and filters. Through his command of these two mediums, Clar’s displays invite viewers to reconsider their relationships with technology.

Also presented are two paintings by London-based Filipino artist Nicole Coson. Her primary emphasis is on the economies of visibility and invisibility, focusing on space in between what is seen and overlooked. She uses analogue printmaking and etching press methods to create her large-scale abstract paintings. For Art Dubai, she shows a monotype print on canvas bearing black and gray patterns of what looks like overlapping netting and rickrack, proposing both undulated movement and stillness. In another work, she experiments with camouflage print by overlaying the print at various opacities. Her works not only demonstrate experimental techniques but also her keen interest in concealment and erasure in art and culture.

Pio Abad (b. 1983, Manila, lives and works in London) began his art studies at the University of the Philippines before receiving a BA from Glasgow School of Art and an MA from the Royal Academy Schools, London. He has recently exhibited at Honolulu Biennial, Hawaii (2019); Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2018); Art Basel Encounters, Hong Kong (2017); Para Site, Hong Kong (2017); Kadist, Paris (2017); Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow (2016); 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney (2016); EVA International Biennial, Limerick (2016); e-flux, New York City (2015); Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong (2015); Museum of Contemporary Art and Design Manila (2015); Gasworks, London (2014) and Jorge B. Vargas Museum, Manila (2014).

Pio Abad’s practice is concerned with the social and political signification of things. His work, in a range of media including textiles, drawing, installation and photography, uses strategies of appropriation to mine alternative or repressed historical events, unravel official accounts and draw out threads of complicity between incidents, ideologies and people. Often taking on the form of domestic accessories, Abad’s artworks glide seamlessly between these histories, enacting quasi-fictional combinations with their leftovers.

James Clar’s (b. 1979, USA, lives in New York and Tokyo) work is an analysis and observation on the affects of media and technology on our perception of culture, nationality, and identity. His interest is in new technology and production processes, using them as a medium, while analyzing and critiquing their modifying affects on human behavior.

Clar studied film as an undergraduate at New York University focusing on 3D Animation, then continued on to his Masters at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program. It was here that he moved away from screen-based work and started working directly with light, creating sculptural lighting pieces. By developing his own systems with which to manipulate light, he discovered he could create unique visual displays, as well as circumvent the limitations of screen-based work, namely resolution and two-dimensionality.

In 2007 James moved to Dubai and lived there till 2012. In the five years living there he became an active participant in the development of the arts and culture scene of the globalized city. While his early work dealt with analyzing how technology and media work, his experiences in the Middle East saw his focus shift to how technology and media affect. This included themes of nationalism, globalism, and popular culture in the age of mass information.

Since returning back to New York, James’ work further explored the conceptual and narrative potential of light and technology. These systems are integrated into our daily lives, altering the way we receive information and communicate. They inform our perception of reality, time, and space. Every system for communication enhances certain types of information while limiting and simplifying others. These modulated effects to our perception have become a thematic focus to his works and a way to experiment with narrative forms.

Clar was an artist in residence at Eyebeam Atelier in New York, Fabrica in Italy, and the FedEx Institute of Technology/Lantana Projects in Memphis. His artwork has been included in the Chanel Mobile Art exhibition (Tokyo), The New Museum of Contemporary Arts (New York), The Chelsea Art Museum (New York), The Somerset House (UK), Museum on Seam (Jerusalem), and Louis Vuitton Gallery (Hong Kong).

Nicole Coson (b. 1992, Manila, lives and works in the UK) aims to examine the concept of invisibility, not only as a passive position as a result of erasure, the problematic dichotomisation of culture but also its potential as an effective artistic strategy. Can invisibility be seen not just as a disability but as an advantage or ability? Like the optical survival strategies utilised by both prey and predator in the natural world? Who can benefit from this tactic of concealment and dissimulation and how can one apply these strategies?

In her work, Coson explores the economies of visibility and disappearance in the case of overlooked bodies, invisibility in warfare as tactical counter measures, and cultural visibility in art. Coson’s work searches for a productive position within invisibility that lends us an opportunity in which we are able to negotiate the terms of our visibility. To vanish and reappear as we please and as necessary to our own personal and artistic objectives, to effectively disappear amongst the grass blades until the very moment we must break that illusion, the very moment when it is time to strike.

Art Dubai is the Middle East’s leading international art fair, taking place every March in Dubai, UAE.

Over the past 14 years, Art Dubai has cemented its role in being a major catalyst in the local, regional and international conversations on art from the Middle East and surrounding region (MENASA – Middle East, North Africa & South Asia), and putting art from these territories onto the global map.

As one of the world’s most international art fairs, Art Dubai has further expanded its commitment to cultivating a culture of discovery, offering exciting new global perspectives and broadening conversations about art beyond traditional western-led geographical scopes and narratives. Featuring three gallery sections (Contemporary, Modern, and Bawwaba), the fair drives meaningful engagement with the rich cultural heritage and contemporary art practices of the region and extending to territories across Southeast and Central Asia, the African continent, and Latin America.

In its role as talent incubator, Art Dubai has been the launch pad and development platform of the successful careers of artists, curators and art professionals, and continues to celebrate art excellence through its extended fair Programming, artist Commissions and initiatives such as the Ithra Art Prize. Art Dubai also works closely with its Partners in producing innovative art programming and supporting the cultural community.

Art Dubai is part of a vibrant and dynamic local art ecology, and operates in close collaboration with institutions that are the heartbeat of artistic production in the UAE, such as the Jameel Arts Centre, Ishara Art Foundation, Sharjah Art Foundation, Maraya Art Centre, Louvre Abu Dhabi, Salama Bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation, Tashkeel, NYUAD Art Gallery and Alserkal Avenue among others.