Drawing inspiration from the concept of limits and an aim to gain an understanding of its nature is what prompted Lui Medina’s latest body of work titled ASCETICS(UNBOUND). In this show, she continues to delve deeper and investigate the metaphysical manifestation of simple objects, just as she has done in her past shows. The 30-year-old artist pursues this investigation not only through her artworks but also through the processes and materials used to create each piece. “Both material and the ritual of making are signifiers that attempt to verbalize the continuity and intimate relationships that take place,” Medina expounds.
ASCETICS(UNBOUND) features four pieces tediously crafted by the artist. Medina’s affinity to oval panels, which she has showed in past exhibitions, is once again evident in this display. She states, “I think there’s something about these shapes that allow me to see and treat my works as objects.” For this body of work, the UP Fine Arts and Slade School of Art graduate worked with oil and beeswax on gesso panels and genuine gold leaf. She also went the traditional way using a mixture of rabbit skin glue and chalk, working layer by layer, slowly building the surface to be painted on. Even bits of the red oil paint used in the artworks, she made herself. Bordering on sculptural pieces, it’s Medina’s interest in the idea and interpretation of her artworks as objects is what shines through.
Medina’s practice places itself on the thin line between the visible and invisible. The manifestation of being in that borderline position, such as tension and anxiety, is a recurring element in her work. It may as well be the driving force behind her practice and craft. It’s obvious that she has a deep interest in the process by which her art is created and the actual making of the pieces. Materials like beeswax, gold leaf, and oil are constant mediums Medina utilizes and starting points for ideas.
In addition, Medina shares, “The materiality of the immaterial, depth and transcendence creates the platform on which my enquiry lies and are, at the same time, the very ideas I question. Material is substance and significant, process and making are involvements, and all play a part in the effort to reach that state of sensory and psychological experience, both between the objects and themselves, and between the objects and spectators.
Medina is a Manila based full-time artist and part-time lecturer at the School of Design and Arts of De la Salle College of St. Benilde. ASCETICS(UNBOUND) is her eighth solo exhibition.
