The show perhaps should be called ‘Infinite, Zero, Infinite’ pertaining to the middle number that zero stands for. On either side of it, are an infinity at the positive or at the negative. Mathematically, these are unconnected—zero is a number; infinity is a concept you can never reach.

For this show, Jose Santos III chose Bernardo Pacquing, Bernardo Pacquing chose Chati Coronel. Santos and Pacquing were first, and last, together shown at the Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artist Award in 2000, the millennium bug year. Chati’s pieces float in and out of Bernie’s consciousness, like spirit pieces reflected on months after their encounter. A conversation over studio visits among the artists revealed common interests in the beginnings of their processes, in the endless inquiries presented by specifics. Inquiries that can go either side into positive or negative: x-axis or y-axis. Or z-axis even!

Zero is the measure of nothing, of having no quality; infinity, we use to describe the process of doing something forever. Zero is a definite presence; infinity is an approach. Diagrammatically, their symbols are the same, an unbroken but connected line, but twists of each other.

The twist is what we are interested in. When does something become art? When do materials rise above their humble parts to become more than their sum? When Pacquing ratchets together hard and soft objects to form impossible but consummate unions; when Coronel paints layers on layers of color and text to reveal a final figure that was there from the beginning; and when Santos builds assemblages into cascading packets of the national psyche.

Philosophically, they present a way of working— a perpetual beginning, an indivisible source, the perfect unknown.

Words by Isa Lorenzo

Chati Coronel (b. 1970, Manila) arrived at painting after completing a Degree in Architecture in 1991. She has since developed a distinct practice of deeply layering painted figures, using negative space to contain gestures and landscapes to explore human consciousness and spirit.

Coronel had her first one-woman show at Manila’s seminal artist-run space, Surrounded by Water, in 1999. She was the recipient of a grant for an artist residency at The Vermont Studio Center in 2000 and was the first Filipino artist chosen to participate in the Florence Biennale in 2005. Coronel’s Singapore exhibit, The First Kiss on Earth was listed in Artnet’s Top Ten International Shows of 2014.

Coronel lives and works in Manila and is represented by SILVERLENS.

Bernardo Pacquing (b. 1967, Tarlac) has continually worked in abstraction and non-representation, exploring the physicality of surfaces and the material minutiae of urban life through painting and sculptural forms.

Pacquing was twice declared a winner of the Grand Prize for the Art Association of the Philippines Open Art Competition (Painting, Non-Representation) in 1992 and 1999, and is a recipient of the Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists Award in 2000. He received a Freeman Fellowship Grant for a residency at the Vermont Studio Center in the United States. Pacquing graduated from the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts in 1989.

He currently lives and works in Parañaque City.

Jose Santos III (b. 1970, Manila) received his BFA from the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts where he also taught for several years. His early paintings have a ‘dreamlike’ quality not for their subject but for their convincing veneer of naturalism, which comes into contradiction with our own real-life order. [1]Santos’ narrative works reflect a strong cryptic iconography. Whether it’s about telling stories through his figurative paintings and drawings or tracing histories through his still life compositions in collage, painting, assemblage and installation works, their messages are oftentimes elusive and impenetrable opening up possibilities for interpretation.

In his more recent works, Santos continues his exploration of objects not only to uncover their histories but more so to obscure our perception and understanding of these everyday things.

In 2000, he was chosen as one of the Thirteen Artists Awardees by the Cultural Center of the Philippines. His works have been exhibited in Malaysia, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangladesh, Denmark, Berlin, Paris, New York, and London.

He currently lives and works in Pasig City.

[1] Lifted from an article by Riel Jaramillo Hilario for the artist’s monography, Jose Santos III (vol.2, 2009)