“Yet the green trees

With their long-striding roots

Are keeping pace with me here.”

-from Jaroslav Seifert’s poem “How painful I would find it…”

 

The act of wandering is a search for refuge. There is a sense of rest in aimlessness, a way of grounding oneself and, perhaps, resisting external forces that demand productivity. While Kim Oliveros experiences the pressures of artistic production, he acknowledges that a sense of aimlessness is essential for re-centering and recalibrating the self, much like the comfort found in taking long walks at night without a predetermined destination.

 

Oliveros builds upon his previous exhibitions, capturing impressions of his surroundings, particularly the changing landscapes of his hometown of Angono, Rizal. Through layered imagery and three-dimensional elements in his paintings, he documents places that have gone through transformations over time, while, in Oliveros’s own words, attempting to preserve places, emotions, and moments that continue to shape him. For instance, the bird sculpture is inspired by a species of bird locally known as layang-layang (swallows) which is said to be endemic to Angono but was displaced following the reclamation of parts of the town’s lake.

 

In his installation comprising over a hundred sculptures, Oliveros uses the motif of birds to evoke memories of his early years as a flutist in a marching band in Angono. The title of the work, Uwido, is derived from the Spanish word oido, which roughly translates to “innate musicality.” Suspended by wires, the bird sculpture incorporates bells that produce a subtle sound as it moves. However, Oliveros situates the work in a more local and personal context, referencing his marching band’s practice of uwiduhin, meaning to play music from memory or by feeling.

 

In every show, the artist pairs his paintings with sculptural representations of flowers and insects, and, in the current exhibition, birds. His background in making sculptures was shaped by a brief stint painting finishing details on figurines manufactured for export, suggesting that his artistic inclinations are not incidental but rather long embedded in his consciousness.

 

In Night Walks, the familiar images of a landscape in his work are revisited and reinterpreted through his recent reflections he gathered from his nighttime walks. To reimagine a place that holds meaning in our lives is to recognize it despite the changes brought by time. Oliveros is not only a witness to how past and present landscapes have transformed; through his work, one can begin to imagine a landscape, possibly one that is not bound by time. (James Tana)