“Bones and Blooms” draws resolute attention on death’s perplexing appearance and role in the natural world. Taking this in full regard and in close scrutiny opens the possibility for human beings to enter an existential wonder of something that may be actively missing in their lives – of that which fills the gap that makes purposeful of the quintessence of life; the certainty of temporality. 

In the works exhibited, there is an experience of suffering – given without asking, and can neither be refuted nor apprehended. But there is also an enthralling evocation of that which springs from the fertile impulse of pain. This begets overcoming. There will be those who shall cry out and those who will hear and attend. This exhibit holds a strong conviction that pain is particularly meaningful in its animosity. 

Marvin Quizon’s first solo show attempts to portray this intricate ambivalence of life. In Remains of a Fool and Reminder, death was made apparent. It was, foremost, the first unequivocal way of the artist to say that here is where we shall lie, this is where we shall be in the end. The image of a skeleton is a testament of our mortality. But as we hold our gaze into this imagery, an inexplicable wave and tension, and perhaps even an inspiration reaffirms its opposite dichotomy – that one cannot simply be reduced into this mystery of execution, and in its inevitability, there has to be something more.

-Karen Tesalona