#ArtFairPH 2022 Exhibitor: Secret Fresh "Dysfunctional Platform" The perils of social media have by now been widely acknowledged and discussed in popular discourse. While the platform has opened staggering possibilities and revolutionized communication, networking, mass media, entertainment, and even industries and businesses, it has also created a new space that engenders a plethora of social and mental stresses that take toll on its users and their interactions. This virtual environment has also become a breeding ground for disinformation and distortion of truth over the years, often resulting to serious real-life consequences. Jett Osian confronts the maladies social media has afflicted upon its users in this exhibition of latest works. Alluding to social media as a "dysfunctional platform." Osian uses a mobile device laid flat as a recurring image in this collection of paintings. He magnifies this gadget beyond its normal scale and transforms it into a kind of portal that engulfs individuals or a deep hole where people plunge to no escape. In some works, it is pictured as a literal platform on which human figures rest, while in others it takes the form of an opening from which desperate arms reach out for help. The monochromatic compositions, highlighted only by familiar social media icons, illustrate world that is dull and bleak - a fitting vision for social media's dark side. These pieces raise a range of specific issues and concerns involving social media, from inducing a craving for superficial forms of validation, the proliferation of performative and fictitious identities, the bloating an individual's sense of ego and self-importance, to the negative physiological effects of its excessive usage. All these images pose a stark warning about the bane of the technology that largely defines our current age. "Another year has passed" Time flies so fast, as the cliché goes. It is a catchphrase we often hear people declare during temporal transitions, from welcoming a new year, to celebrating a birthday, to reaching a milestone in life. The two years we spent under a pandemic has made the expression even more striking when we reflect on all the unprecedented events that unfolded - from the onset of the breakout to where we are now. Going through daily life in an extraordinary moment and radically changing the conduct of everyday routines might have been surreal and disorienting for most at first, and later felt dragging as days turn into months and months into years. But two years into the pandemic, we have somehow been accustomed to life in the new normal that some of us might look back in disbelief realizing the length of time that has lapsed since we started living under this condition. As more and more countries gradually open and return to pre-pandemic life while uncertainty still looms over the horizon, this chapter in human history appears to be both closing and extending, and the recent past paradoxically feels protracted and fleeting. These thoughts have inspired Pow Marin's new set of works that serves as a visual diary of his life in the second year of the pandemic, spent mostly at home. Here, he compiles personal experiences, realizations, and observations that made an impact in his life in 2021. Through dreamy compositions of linear figures and bright colors stylized by blankets of floral and dotted patterns, he shares some of the most defining moments of his previous year as well as its prevailing moods and sentiments. We see episodes of distraught, isolation and disconnect, the politically charged atmosphere of the pandemic, the social support we get from peers and family in the darkest times, and personal gains like quitting a decade-old habit. In retrospect, it was another passing journey marked by both ups and downs uncertainty and reassurance, setbacks and moving forward. Visit the Gallery 📍 Ronac Art Center 424 Ortigas Avenue Greenhills North San Juan, San Juan City, Philippines 1502 ART FAIR PHILIPPINES 2022 March 23 - April 1 www.artfairphilippines.com #ArtPH #art #contemporaryart #exhibition #gallery #Philippines
Posted 1 year ago
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