Manila Contemporary is proud to present the Upstairs Gallery’s first solo exhibition by Kaloy Sanchez. Developing the artist’s latest point of interest: the memento mori, Sanchez presents tragically beautiful images of children filled with fanciful details and painterly expression that have been inspired by Victorian photographs of the dead. Continuing in his monochromatic style he uses a psychological repertoire of marks, brushstroke and details that charge his approach to figurative realism with the visually surreal and emotionally uncanny.

‘Memento Mori’ is a Latin phrase that is a reminder of human mortality. Gaining popularity within Victorian Christian beliefs of sin, heaven, hell and Divine judgement it soon evolved into a moralizing genre of art. However, Sanchez purposefully selects a secular idea of the mento mori as a gesture remembrance, by choosing the heartbreak of young lives cut too short. Portrait photography of the dead was a common practice in Victorian times, with families often posing with their deceased children to commemorate their short lives. It is this process of remembering, of how we select details such as poses, clothing and objects in order to preserve memories that Sanchez seizes upon in Ring Around the Rosie. These articulated ‘mementos’, of how lives are remembered, creates a viewing tension as audiences are unaware who these children are or the circumstances of their demise.

Sanchez’s fascination with this haunting practice lies in the romanticization of remembrance, cognition and the end of human life. Of the parallel between memory and death.