Silverlens Manila is pleased to announce a solo exhibition by Chati Coronel, opening 19 July 2025 with an opening reception from 5 to 8 PM.

“We are born knowing,” Chati Coronel writes in her artist statement for Notes for Exaltation, her ninth solo exhibition with Silverlens.

Coronel is known for her multi-layered paintings created through a process she refers to as Figurative Spatialism. Here, she paints layers of abstract movement in raw strokes and contains them in a color space that forms a human figure’s silhouette. Her work is informed by a wide range of influences, including Rudolf Steiner, Louis Kahn, poetry, fables, and Tibetan Buddhist thought.

In Notes for Exaltation, Chati Coronel presents six large paintings that continue her search for intrinsic knowledge and power, drawing inspiration from figures in Tarot and ancient Gnostic verses. Framed by her ongoing interest in what she refers to as Human Power—an innate intelligence displaced by systems of efficiency and control—the exhibition invites viewers to turn inward and reconnect with the self.

Four of the works in the exhibition forgoes the human figure, urging the viewer to see themselves within the worlds depicted. Each work corresponds to one of the four instruments of the Magus (Magician) in tarot, the first Major Arcana card in traditional tarot decks, reimagined as anatomical blueprints. Alongside it are two paintings that underscore the human as simultaneously one whole and a fragment of something bigger. Further engaging with dualities, the works speak in contradictions: divine and fallen; known and hidden.

Disguised as paintings, the six works in Notes for Exaltation are coded messages, sigils, ritual objects designed to pull at each viewer’s invisible strings. Through the exhibition, Coronel seeks to awaken what lies dormant in each viewer, in the hope that they remember.

Notes for Exaltation by Chati Coronel will be on view from 19 July until 16 August 2025 at Silverlens Manila.

—Angel Stinson

Chati Coronel (b. 1970, Manila, Philippines; lives and works in Toronto, Canada) arrived at painting by way of a degree in Architecture from The University of Santo Tomas in the Philippines in 1991, establishing a distinguished practice that spans three decades. Coronel is known for her multi-layered paintings that employ a process she refers to as ‘Figurative Spatialism,’ in which she paints layers of abstract movement in raw strokes and contains them in a color space that forms the silhouette of a human figure.

Influenced by the principles of philosopher Rudolf Steiner and architect Louis Khan, as well as by the forms and traditions of poetry, children’s fables, and Tibetan Buddhist thought, Coronel draws on these seemingly disparate sources, convergent within her artistic practice, to delve deep into her subjects. She masterfully uncovers the essence of each subject, considering its origins and fundamental nature. Armed with this intimate understanding, Coronel reshapes and molds the subject into a futuristic tapestry of mythos, all through the medium of her art. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and art fairs in Los Angeles, Manila, Florence, Singapore, Seoul, and Hong Kong.