ISABEL SANTOS & IAN JAUCIAN | In the Year 2000

Thursday, February 26
at 6:00pm

Silverlens Galleries
2/F YMC Bldg. 2320 Don Chino Roces Avenue Extension, 1231 Makati

ISABEL SANTOS & IAN JAUCIAN
In the Year 2000
Silverlens, Manila
26 February – 21 March 2015

Opening Reception
6-9PM, 26 February 2015

Silverlens Galleries is pleased to present In the Year 2000, a two-person show by Isabel Santos and Ian Jaucian.

In the Year 2000 is a survey of imagined futures. Speaking from a non-specific point in the past, their paintings and Jaucian’s robot create a different version of the “future”—in this case, the year 2000—one that suggests our inescapable demise. “We are doomed to be forever a tragic race, over-engineering the world around us that every solution to any problem opens up more problems,” Jaucian explains.

It is the first time that Jaucian and Santos are working together on a show. Upon meeting, both of them soon realized that they had a heart for the environment, towards which their common belief is that although we are the dominant species on the planet, we are somehow actively working towards our extinction.

Despite the obvious and broadest theme of In the Year 2000 being “the future,” both Jaucian and Santos arrived at the same type of conclusion: “That the way we are living now will cause our eventual decline and extinction,” according to Santos. This shared perspective provides worldviews that exist apart from each other, but also within each other’s realms of possibility.

Jaucian’s scenic paintings provide a clearer narrative, from which the most otherworldly stories emerge. His world expresses futuristic situations in which a problematic irony played again and again, a seemingly endless loop of solutions that complicates rather than solves. His interest in electronics and robotics provides the structure by which his ideas play in. In “Harmony of Technology, Magic, and Slavery,” Jaucian expresses a cycle of destruction perpetuated by different human actions.

Santos’ paintings present an amalgam of popular icons and drawings of the human anatomy, the skeletal system rendered in graphite. The effect is somewhat jarring, with lifeless bones layered over Superman. Superhero comics surged in popularity in America, a reaction to World War II, as a symbol of hope against the enemies of humanity, of good triumphing over evil. Santos’ paintings explore the pattern of the dominant species eventually dying out, with the anatomy and comics as the only remaining recognizable forms of humanity.

Although both Jaucian and Santos are liberal with their use of color and icons of popular culture, the resulting collective story they ended up telling is an ominous picture of what might have been, and more terrifying, what could still be. They present an alternative universe towards which we may already be heading, especially with the thoughtless use of technology and a lack of care for the environment.

In the Year 2000, their two-man show’s namesake, was a segment on the now-defunct Late Night with Conan O’Brien in which the cast members provide “present-day” reportage on “future” events. In a way, Jaucian and Santos do the same. Their story is a commentary on humans destroying humans, a preview of our inexorable death as a species.

Jaucian and Santos play off of each other, creating a timeline in which our own technology and advancements, aimed at providing solutions and quality of life, end up destroying us in the end. What was meant to serve, aid, and uplift us, has aided in our inevitable decay.
For inquiries, contact Silverlens Galleries at 2/F YMC Bldg. II, 2320 Don Chino Roces Ave. Ext. Makati, 816-0044, 0917-5874011, or info@silverlensgalleries.com. Gallery hours are Monday to Friday 10AM– 7PM and Saturdays 1–6PM.

-Carina Santos

About the Artists

After spending a summer in Germany and Austria, Isabel Santos (b. 1991) began to rediscover her forgotten love for painting and drawing. The following year, a family trip to Europe filled with gallery and museum visits affirmed her decision to shift her focus and career from European Studies towards the Arts. She ended 2013 with her first group show in West Gallery entitled “Works on Paper.” Not forgetting her interest in Europe and Germany, she incorporates the things she learned and loved from them into her work.

Ian Jaucian (b. 1986) is a Filipino visual artist based in the Philippines. In 2008 he graduated from the University of the Philippines Diliman College of Fine Arts cum laude with a Bachelor’s Degree in Painting. He draws much of his inspiration from science, exploring its relationship with visual art through various media, which through the years have included paintings, sculpture, kinetics, and interactive installations.

About Silverlens (Manila and Singapore)

Founded by Isa Lorenzo and Rachel Rillo in 2004, Silverlens has earned recognition from both artists and collectors as one of the leading contemporary art galleries in Southeast Asia. Through its exhibition program, artist representation, art fair participation and institutional collaboration, Silverlens aims to place its artists within the broader framework of international contemporary art dialogue.

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