A Solo Exhibit by Katya Angara
July 25 — August 6, 2023
Opening Reception
July 25, Tuesday | 6PM
The Crucible Gallery
Level 4, Building A, SM Megamall, Mandaluyong, Philippines
To confront the power of nature is to confront ourselves. In her solo exhibit “Dendrophilia”, dark artist Katya Angara shatters the walls of the Freudian ego and conscious self by taking us beyond the boundaries of understanding and into revelatory dreams of unconscious desire.
Slipping into her Plant Diwata alter ego, Angara commits herself to new ways of connecting to the natural world as a dendrophile, a lover of plants. Plants speak in unseen ways, and feed off our emotions and energies. Her material explorations emulate plants in their natural habitats, how they react to human touch, voices and music, how they form symbiosis or conflict with us and other forms of life.
Her chosen materials of paper, pencils and charcoal are a symbolic homage to the natural cycles of life. Plants are transformed into paper which humans use for art and writing; in turn, she provides a second life to these materials, honouring their ancient providence using paper art as a conduit to reflect on themes of catharsis, symbiosis, transience, and transcendence, alongside careful scientific observation of the physical forms and social behaviours of plants.
When the Plant Diwata withdraws, she is subsumed by Angara’s second alter ego, Blonde Ninja Vampire, who takes over in gleeful dominatrix fashion. Using the language of flowers, this vampire manipulates shards of flower drawings into violent forms that float and drift in absurdity and futility. But then we are awakened to the visceral pleasure of small things: the chiaroscuro of light and shadow, of how one paper fractal transforms the other like a mirror reflecting infinite versions of itself. Whilst her pencil and charcoal illustrations may seem nihilistic, they speak deeply of the artist’s acceptance of the human condition as driven both by evolutionary biology and selfdetermination. The entire universe is born time and again in every single flower.
About the Artist
