Traversing the terrain of a wooded interiority, an axe and a bow at the ready, Lyndon Maglalang’s latest works follow the continuation of the artist’s journey — one of weighing up past actions, charting the wild expanse of the mind, and setting the course toward a reckoning.
An offshoot of his previous Everything is in Parables, the collection of works draws from Maglalang’s spiritual reflections guided by the Scriptures, and bears the artist’s signature of featureless landscapes and figures. Another mark of his ascetic practice, Maglalang lays new layers of paint with the dried-up remnants and fragments of past projects: like a lesson in moving on, his works hold onto the relics we accumulate over time — dreams and experiences we have cherished and preserved, hurts and defeats we try to stow or discard. Each piece bears a history and finds renewal in the creation of another. This time, they carry the narrative of an artist more resolute about the path he is forging.
Preparatory Measures stages Maglalang’s darkest scenographic work, with a palette that departs significantly from his previous works, as his figures cast larger, deeper shadows across the canvas. The oxymoronic ‘Untitled: Certainty’ series bears witness to the struggle against these shadows, as darkness envelops each piece to near-obfuscation. In the deepening gloaming, however, a shaft of light pierces through. This guiding light prevails across another ‘Untitled’ series, illuminating the lay of the land for the hunter deep in the forest, the woodsman out in the plains, and the artist amid change.
An anomaly among these untitled works, ‘Home’ heralds a return to the familiar, back to a recognizable landscape: the lone figure now stands before his project, a warm light beckoning from within to take him out of the woods.
In Preparatory Measures, Maglalang braves the solitary venture into the thickets of one’s existence, as he recites in earnest: “Into the dense forest of my soul, I start to walk”.
Into The Dark, Toward The Light
