Lee Paje

In partnership with Tin-Aw Gallery
September — November 2017

Lee Paje makes use of meticulously chosen materials and forms such as painting on canvas and copper, sculpture, printmaking, video, and public art installation to create works concerned with independence, individuality, and identities. Her visual narratives reveal alternative realities that bring attention to the restraints of gender inequality. She intertwines contemporary lifestyles with the rigidity of past traditions. Once revealed, her compositions are filled with seemingly personal anecdotes yet actually extend to social, cultural, and historical commentary.

Lee graduated magna cum laude in studio arts from the College of Fine Arts, University of the Philippines Diliman. Her undergraduate video work, Sit In My Retina, won the college’s Dominador Castañeda Award for Most Outstanding Thesis (2009). She was chosen in the 2014 Young Artist Discovery Section, Art Taipei in Taipei, Taiwan and in 2018, her entry 'Passage to the Land of Sugar' for the Don Papa Rum art competition won the Grand Prize and People's Choice Award. She was also an artist-in-residence in Art Omi (Ghent, NY) in the same year. In 2021, her large-scale works were exhibited in QAGOMA, Australia as part of the 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art. And in 2022, she participated in a 3-month residency program in Germany supported by the Goethe Institut and LIA-Liepzig International Art Programme. She has exhibited in the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Italy, the US, Australia and Germany.

DIIN, SAN-O, SIN-O

Curated by Eya Beldia
17.12.2017
Kapitana Gallery

LANDMARKS

People identify themselves with a particular place. It could be as large as a country or as intimate as a bedroom. Since the time man had gained capacity to shape his environment for his own purpose, communities have used territorial boundaries, however flexible or however rigid, as a factor in defining what is “us” from what is “them”. In the Philippines where regionalism is strong, when an individual is asked to identify themselves, more often than not, immediately following stating one’s name is revealing one’s geographic origin.

The dynamics between place and identity is what the artist Lee Paje, whose previous works have delved in themes that explore questions about the concept of identity, attempts to probe in her latest exhibition Diin, San-o, Sin-o.

The exhibition is a culmination of her Artist Residency Program with Kapitana Gallery which is located in Talisay, Negros Occidental. Balay ni Tana Dicang, an ancestral house, partly guided the direction of her study and the image of which were featured on many of her paintings for the exhibition. She directed her research on Spanish-era and pre-war buildings and houses that are scattered around Negros Occidental. She notes how these structures which withstood decades of foreign occupation and two world wars have in time become entwined with the very identity of the locale in which they are situated. She has also observed that modernization is, to some extent, redefining the identity of these old structures as new establishments rise up around them.

Based from these realizations, she has come to the conclusion that “spaces make identities and identities make spaces”. Paje then carries over this conclusion in the conception of her artworks for the exhibition. Through her oil on Copper paintings, she attempts to “create spaces that allow redefinition and reorientation of identities”. Her paintings are not merely faithful renderings of landscapes and structures. She takes these landmarks and fuses them with vistas from another locality; some of which are images of modern architecture that is indicative of urban progress. Through this process she is able to create an imagined scene, altogether new but still feels familiar.

Based from these realizations, she has come to the conclusion that “spaces make identities and identities make spaces”. Paje then carries over this conclusion in the conception of her artworks for the exhibition. Through her oil on Copper paintings, she attempts to “create spaces that allow redefinition and reorientation of identities”. Her paintings are not merely faithful renderings of landscapes and structures. She takes these landmarks and fuses them with vistas from another locality; some of which are images of modern architecture that is indicative of urban progress. Through this process she is able to create an imagined scene, altogether new but still feels familiar.

An aspect of the discourse not visible in the artworks but are inevitably tackled by the concept are the individual identities of the audience — each coming from diverse backgrounds and with different levels of affinity towards the subjects that will come into play when they interact with the pieces. There will be the locals, who arguably would have the strongest feeling of familiarity with the images. There may also be individuals who, having not seen these sites for a long time because of one reason or another, might be surprised positively or otherwise, to see the changes that they have undergone. There might even be those who will be exposed to the sceneries for the first time; their reactions a little harder to predict. Regardless of background, each individual’s reaction to the reimagining of these landmarks will always reveal a part of their identity. Through the exhibition the artist hopes to compel the audience to ask themselves: Diin kita? (Where are we?), San-o ini? (When is this?), Sin-o kita? (Who are we?).