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artist’s books, altered books
Object Reader: Tender Shards. artist’s book. WXXX. West Gallery. 2019. Photos by Patrick Ang.
object reader. altered book, marble, ceramic, and travertine. solo exhibition at MO_Space Gallery. 2019.
I assemble them like an array of minerals, just as a hunter or collector would display treasures.
Rhythms of a Sleeping Body, Artist’s Book, MO_Space, ALT2020
Rhythms of a Sleeping Body. Series of artist’s books. MO_Space Gallery. ALT Philippines 2020.
“The visual deconstruction of the books’ contents would pique our curiosity. The artist demonstrates the politics of positioning: what belongs where and how. In presenting new contexts of the objects, the artist tells the viewer of her power. Hence, the decision in the composition is not only created by chance but rather by an inquisition and an exploratory practice of retrieval.
The ritual involves accumulating books, which the artist is set to recreate through her intervention. Through these works, Suarez acts as the hunter and the gatherer as she demonstrates authority in selecting and assembling. New ways of mapping and reading the materials are composed through the process.
Suarez emerged with the thought of “involuntary remembering” in her previous works, which is an act that simulates a process called “virtual unearthing” that exists only through the force of memory. By altering and re-orienting the tales, which are ingrained in the objects, Suarez paves the way with new ones that would form and would inform the present.”
excerpt from the exhibition notes for ALTPH 2020
Notes from one of the artist’s books: “I imagine my cutouts as texts transcribed from nature — carved into likeness of stones and chippings. I assemble them like an array of minerals, just as a hunter or collector would display treasures. I picture the distance between every stone, as pauses and spaces of stories wanting to be told. (I am) constantly looking for patterns. There are different forms of energy inside these images — paintings and drawings. I try to respond to them like an exercise of sorts; as gestures of reminiscences. —I let these images reduce into beings; as creatures of their own language. Here is a record: of impulses emptied of meanings. What fits where and how, what is true and essential, belongs in the hands of the storyteller - JS”
—I let these images reduce into beings; as creatures of their own language. Here is a record: of impulses emptied of meanings.
Rhythms of a Sleeping Body, Artist’s Book, MO_Space
Rubber-cut print inside one of the artist’s books. 2020.