“I am never alone as I’m surrounded by trees far wiser…”

As visual artist Genavee Lazaro walks along the pavements of her alma mater, she lets the feeling of safety and comfort settle within her. She reminisces the five years she spent on the campus suntering on roads lined with flowers and tendrils and picking various plants of interest.

It is in this act of gathering that rekindles her desire to create, presenting the idea of foraging as a state of mind equivocal of one’s adventures and what is made out of those journeys. Her exhibit’s pivotal piece entitled “Frequencies of Love and Light” is an acrylic work that focuses on a lone tree whose massive branches stretch out across the 4-by-5 foot canvas. Despite its immensity, Lazaro plays with her curiosity as she places her signature cactus friends frolicking about in both quiet and obvious places in the piece. 

This is the same kind of curiosity that transcends to the audience. An artist’s request to surrender to curiosity and nurture the ideas foraged thereafter, letting it grow and be a continuous source of exploration and discovery.

And in this discovery, she presents the translucent properties of porcelain by using only light stains and transparent glaze. Having worked with ceramics for years, she extends her knowledge by displaying four sculptures that illuminate warm hues of pink and yellow. The presence of these cactus lamps evokes the feeling of a conscious drifting into the wilderness, only guided by certain “lights” symbolically interpreted as her inspirations.  

Her fourth solo exhibition, “Foraging the Mind” almost becomes an homage to this liberating wandering she once had, as she recreates scenes of her favorite spots in the University of the Philippines Diliman and sculpts an abundance of flora that are seemingly whispering and waiting to welcome her back again.

notes by Grace Micah Oreiro