Miguel Aquilizan : Lost and Found @ Art Front Gallery

"Hybrid N°6" 2019 / 26.5cmx10.5cmx9.6cm / Black rectangular base, caribou jaw bone, pearls, sake cup, paint brush handle.


Lost and Found (2019)
Aniway Aquilizan (curator)

In Lost and Found (2019) Miguel Aquilizan continues his exploration of transcultural migratory bodies and objects. In this show, Aquilizan re-works accumulated found objects, both organic and man-made, through the intuitive practice he calls, “object collage.” Within a finite world, Aquilizan’s use of objects already existing in the world, allows him to create new life and narratives in the forgotten. This show extends his previous transformations of found family heirlooms and antiques, through his incorporation of everyday objects used for veneration, adornment or utility. How we are connected to, and connected by these objects within a globalised context is a question perpetually asked by the artist.

The artist is drawn to objects that hold histories of migration across sea and land, coming from second-hand stores in Australia and Japanese surplus stores in the Philippines. Lost and Found can be seen as a mapping of the global and borderless movement of excesses. The object collages can reflect implications of such movement in evoking experiences of dislocation and non-belonging, even in their return to ‘home’. Seen as a mirroring of the artist’s own experiences, the objects embody identities that are in flux; in a state oscillating between construction and deconstruction in the blurring of their forms, functions, and inherently, their cultural heritages. The objects resist interpretation and belonging across scales of time and space; they are unable to be defined. Cultivated by this resistance are new identities in their hybrid forms.

"Hybrid N°16" 2019 / 26.4cmx12.5cm.7.1cm / driftwood, stamp, wood, carnelian beads, one eye

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Miguel Aquilizan
(b. 1986. Manila, Philippines)
currently lives and works in Los Banos,
Laguna, Philippines at the Fruit Juice Factory. M Aquilizan explores aspects of society and
history through poetic narratives that are assembled, scavenged or found. Challenging
cultural memory and interrogating notions of cultural displacement and ambiguity due to
globalization, migration and colonialism.


■Education
Griffith University, Queensland College of Art. Certificate of Fine Arts (Jewellery) 2007
University of the Phillipines, Diliman. Bachelor of Fine Arts (Sculpture Major) 2004-2006


■Solo Exhibition
2018 A Pilgrimage; Souls retrieved, Ceremonies constructed, The Drawing Room,Philippines
2014 Discordant, The Drawing Room Contemporary Art, Gillman Barracks, Singapore
2013 Art Taipei 2013, The Drawing Room, Booth Y02, Taipei World Trade Center, Taiwan,
Heirloom, The Drawing Room, Philippines


■Selected Group Exhibitions
2018 No Empty Chair, The Drawing Room, Manila, Philippines
Art Fair Philippines, The Link, Makati City, Philippines
Manila Biennale, Intramuros, Philippines
On, The Drawing Room, Manila, Philippines
Limbo, Limbo, Manila, Philippines
Biennale, Honolulu, Hawaii
2016 Art Basel Hong Kong, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong.
2014 Art Taipei 2014, The Drawing Room, Taipei, Taiwan.
Bazaar Art Jakarta 2014, The Drawing Room, The Ritz – Carlton Jakarta, Pacific Place, Indonesia.
Strict Selection: Multiple Dimension of Philippine's Contemporary Art, Nunu Fine Art, Taipei, Taiwan.

"MutationN°2" 2019 / 28cmx27cmx44cm / color way orange, red with animal horn