Silverlens Manila is honored to present A Knowing, an intergenerational exhibition of three women artists whose singular practices are distinct, and brave: Geraldine Javier (Batangas, Philippines), Emily Cheng (New York City, USA), and Citra Sasmita (Bali, Indonesia). The exhibition opens 23 August 2025 and runs until 27 September 2025.

All three artists share a connection to history and a belief in powers beyond what humans can see. The title of the show, A Knowing, comes from Emily Cheng’s book, In the Weave of Worlds. She speaks of the invisible connection between things: “the energy, of whatever you want to call it, exists outside the realm of the senses, while perceived nevertheless. Sometimes it is called a knowing.”

Geraldine Javier, a farmer-artist who left the chaos of Manila over ten years ago, presents one of her garden series, paying homage to artists before her who have tended to gardens alongside their practices. She will be presenting Two Fridas (2021), her take on the late great Mexican artist’s garden. In this work which features elements of nature from paintings by Kahlo – flowers, fruits, plants, monkeys, butterflies – without Kahlo herself, Geraldine’s installation is a stage for the visitor, much like Kahlo’s garden was a stage for herself.

Emily Cheng, a Chinese-American artist with heritage roots in the Philippines, presents a suite of landscape paintings. Cheng makes paintings of what we can feel: “the forms that feelings can take”, she says. Here she presents a series of paintings to accompany meditation, titled Cosmic Heads; and a suite of landscape paintings, titled After Shen Shichong.

Citra Sasmita, a Balinese artist working with Kamasan traditional paintings as foundation for her long term Timur Merah project, rounds this group of alpha female artists. Using the symbolism of fire for purification, water for knowledge, hair for female genealogical connections, and blood for the cycle of life, Sasmita transforms the hypermale conventions of Kamasan paintings into women’s stories.

Citra’s women are transformed into protagonists and central figures in the paintings, claiming rightful space in history, honoring the knowledge that was inherent in Bali prior to the influence of the first Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms in the region.

Bringing the three artists together for the first time, the exhibition situates them as totem poles for growing, tending, and guarding. Geraldine Javier’s work is about seeding the ground; Emily Cheng, tending the land; and Citra Sasmita, protecting it all. There is a courage to the stick-to-it-ness of these artists and a corresponding sureness of practice.

A Knowing opens on 23 August and runs until 27 September 2025. Alongside this will be a solo exhibition of Japanese American artist Yasue Maetake. Join us for an opening reception on 23 August from 5 to 8 PM at Silverlens Manila.

– Isa Lorenzo

Emily Cheng’s (b. 1953, New York, USA; lives and works in New York) partial list of exhibitions  include solo shows at the Central Art Museum in Hangzhou, Shenzhen Art Museum, Bronx Museum  in New York, Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, Metropolitan Museum of Manila, Ayala Museum  in Manila, the Cincinnati Center for Contemporary Art, Johanniterkirche Feldkirch in Austria, Hanart  Gallery and Louis Vuitton Espace in Hong Kong. Her work has also been featured in notable group  exhibitions including Shanghai Biennale, MASS MoCA, Guangzhou Triennial at Guangdong Art  Museum, Hubei Triennial in Wuhan, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, The China  Institute, National Academy of Design and American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York,  Katonah Museum of Art, Hong Kong Arts Centre, and MOCA Shanghai. She has received numerous  awards and fellowships, including those from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National  Endowment for the Arts, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, and a Yaddo fellowship. She has been the  subject of two books, Chasing Clouds, A Decade of Studies, published by Time Zone 8 and Emily  Cheng in the Weave of Worlds, Alchemy in Painting published by Archive Books in Berlin.

Geraldine Javier (b. 1970, Makati City, Philippines; lives and works in Batangas, Philippines) is one of  the Philippines’ most important and collected contemporary artists. With a Nursing degree from the  University of the Philippines that included a top rank in the licensure exams, she took a second  university degree in Fine Arts and pursued an art practice. Since 1995, she has held more than 30  solo exhibitions in the Philippines, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore, Germany, and China. From  1999 to 2003 she was a member of the Surrounded by Water collective.  

Much of her early work was in collage form but it was with paintings that she established her  reputation as an inventive artist. These were characterized by either melancholy or wit: death and  childhood were frequent subject matters. By 2008, she was making fabric works with the paintings  and combining them in installations; exhibitions were a mixture of paintings, installations, and  objects. Paintings would often have collaged elements, notably preserved beetles and butterflies. In  2013, she moved south from Manila to the countryside in the district of Batangas. Her work  increasingly dealt with our relationship with nature. Current projects often involve the participation of  the women in the community where she lives. In 2019, she exhibited at the Havana Biennial. Around  this time, she began exploring two new forms of paintings: palimpsestic and encaustic (with use of  blowtorch).

Citra Sasmita (b. 1990, Bali; lives and works in Bali) is a contemporary artist whose work focuses on  unraveling the myths and misconceptions of Balinese art and culture. She is also deeply invested in  questioning a woman’s place in the social hierarchy and seeks to upend the normative construct of  gender. One of her long term projects, Timur Merah Project; Harbor of Restless Spirits was presented  in Garden of Six Seasons, Para Site Hong Kong—a painting on cow’s hide reflects the Kamasan  Balinese painterly language that Citra has been developing in her practice. It represents a geography  of female figures, fires, and various natural elements, composed whimsically in an unfolding of  pansexual energy. While rooted in mythological thinking with specific Hindu and Balinese references,  the scenes are equally part of the contemporary process of imagining a secular and empowered  mythology for a post-patriarchal future.  

Citra was a Gold Award Winner UOB Painting of The Year 2017. She was included in Biennale  Yogyakarta 2019 and her solo show titled Ode To The Sun was held at Yeo Workshop, Gillman  Barracks Singapore in 2020. She was also included in Garden Of Six Seasons, a notable exhibition  presented by Para Site Hong Kong.