Forever. For Now.
Solo exhibition at Sara Nightingale Gallery
Sag Harbor, NY, July 10-30, 2025
As a child in the Philippines, I would crush hibiscus petals — gumamela — mixing their gelatinous essence with water to create a sudsy solution. With a bamboo hoop, I dipped and blew bubbles into the thick, humid air. Each shimmering sphere — weightless, iridescent, joyful — floated briefly, then disappeared. That fleeting beauty stayed with me: a quiet lesson that wonder, brilliant and brief, cannot be held.
Forever. For Now. begins here — with an intuitive understanding that joy resists containment, and meaning often lives in what slips away. This collection is not rooted in nostalgia, but in the celebration of impermanence. At its heart is the hibiscus, rich with cultural and spiritual symbolism, a marker of transformation and transience. Through the blending of traditional basket weaving forms with contemporary abstraction, I explore the tension between vivid presence and inevitable passing.
This body of work is both homage and release — an invitation to honor what cannot last, and to let ephemeral beauty shape our understanding of what endures.
