In Connected Roots, two different approaches to sculpture are exemplified by two very different artists. On the one hand is Dennis Jimenez, whose use of wood as material compels him to apply the subtractive method; while on the other is Josh Limon Palisoc who applies the additive method by welding techniques for his metal sculptures. That being said, the two artists are both driven by the same passion to express themselves through sculptural forms.; and while their materials and approach differ, for this exhibition both artists dig deep at what inspires their personal imagery and what informs their artistic philosophy, along the way discovering connections between their themes and concepts as well as between them, the artists, with their audience.

Jimenez was driven to wood sculpting by the abundance of scattered tree trunks in his hometown of Alfonso, Cavite and he considers it a blessing in his life as he had no formal art education or training. It has, in his own words, changed his life. As such, his subject matter are mostly his own musings about life, love, spirituality and often-overlooked beauty of how the natural world affects us all. His pieces titled Triumph of Love and Tuklasin are, respectively, odes to the sense of wholeness of a loving relationship and the feeling of satisfaction that a new discovery brings. As he turns his reflections into wooden sculptures, he also holds on to the idea that art can be a way to channel one’s thoughts so that others might take inspiration from them. His work titled Steampunk Heart underscores this idea; as Jimenez shares to his audience how his artworks make him feel alive, he allows his audience to have a glimpse of his feelings with the hopes that they may experience something of the same feeling as well. Speaking of which, Jimenez’s works take on a steampunk aesthetic by virtue of his melding of mechanical imagery with organic forms. In his works, the machine elements are not in contradiction with nature, rather, the gears represent the interconnectedness within nature and how well in order everything seems to be. This is exemplified in his work aptly titled Connection, in which he used the images of the wolf and the chameleon linked by gears to show how nature allows the possibility to live harmoniously even within such diversity.

At the other half of the exhibition is Josh Limon Palisoc’s metalworks that uses the image of the human figure as subject matter in order to interpret his explorations on the concept of the inner self. He takes his cue from concepts that form the foundation of Filipino Psychology namely, “loob” (internal), “labas” (external) and “lalim” (depth). He reflects on how these concepts make sense within his own experiences that led him to a cathartic self-realization. The feeling of liberation brought about by his self-expression he articulated in his piece, titled Sisidlan ng Kalooban, showing a figure bisected, calling to mind an image of a container and revealing what is inside. Palisoc, through his pieces, confides with his audiences his own dark moments and how he processed them now that he is looking from the other side. In his work titled Sa Loob Matatagpuan ang Liwanag, the artist relates how moments of brokenness can be turned into opportunities for actualization. He shares that at his lowest point, the point when he questioned his own significance, he became self-destructive but by the end of it he felt that his breaking point had allowed the light within him to shine through the cracks and eventually overcome the darkness. As the artist notes: “you need to be lost in order to be truly found”.

In his piece titled Sa Dibdib Mo’y Buhay, he veers this discourse to the next step, which is, sharing the said “light within” to other people, while his other work titled Alab ng Puso how strong emotions can the inner flame that can either push an individual to try harder or a wildfire that will ultimately consume the individual from within.

While the two different disciplines of Jimenez and Palisoc seem to share only their appreciation for the tangible three-dimensional form, their practice cross paths in a curious intersection in that while Jimenez incorporates mechanical imagery to an organic material such sa wood, Palisoc does the inverse by integrating the natural in the form of flowers to an industrial material such as metal. Nevertheless, their trajectories seem to converge to a common point.

Both artists talked about the heart, the figurative core of an individual from which a person’s character and emotions take root, and while having very different life experiences, all their works share a positive message. In this exhibition, both artists highlight an important aspect of art, that it can be a medium for introspection.

-Ioannis Sicuya