A solo exhibit by Allain Hablo
July 12 to 25, 2023
Galerie Anna
4F SM Megamall Bldg. A
Mandaluyong City
From the lingering belief that perfection always equates to beauty, the world designed its unattainable expectations that we took and applied every single day. From our choices to how we create our identities, and eventually to the tactics we draw on, we have a blueprint for building our own stature. Like a pill, we feed ourselves into a dosage of optimism that will eventually push us to extreme and over-the-top efforts just to earn an acceptable validated value, while daunted by pressure that makes us struggle more. Pursuing magnificence came from the inferred world’s vanity and outlandish craving for the sublime. It is natural for us to experience an unexplainable hunger for validation from others’. We strive for admiration and approval, not realizing that we are ceaselessly grappling our way into a worldly definition of success. Relentlessly running to achieve the “best” and to declare ourselves the most, not realizing that the journey to the goal has its chaos and is paradoxically unpleasant, the pill we took has a bitter aftertaste, and ironically, you have to persist against dread before the glory. Later on, we start to fathom out that the pills we ingested have an unhealthy repercussion, pulling us to have faith in an improbable utopian domain that is born by an imaginary mind—in the end, perfection is beyond existence, a fantasy no one can afford. While this proposition attacks our hopeful view, it leads us to enlightenment and a more reachable horizon. Perfection doesn’t always reflect beauty, and beauty doesn’t steer by not making mistakes; fortunate for us, it is quite the opposite.
Similarly to the artistic concept of wabi-sabi that celebrates the aesthetic value of imperfections, Allain Hablo’s canvasses reminds us that life as well as the human nature to be incomplete, impermanent and imperfect and there’s no wrong in accepting this verity. We are honestly lacking, we cannot conceal our scars how hard we may try, but all we can do is to face our shortcomings, and transform the dearth and horrid parts of us into an advantage, just as how Hablo used the raw, and hard industrial materials to create. He again exhibits his absolute ability to metamorphose scarps into his own masterpieces by cutting, wrinkling, and remolding, not just by tools but also by his contemporary distortion of what is aesthetically pleasing. Hablo’s art pieces utilized the constancy of change. Manipulated by talent and extraordinary visions, this body of work plays with the defects presented by the scratches and wounds that gave the pieces their distinctive character. It may seem coarse at first glance, but the fullness of texture and vulgarity that were forged by the rustic designs, the random dents, and scattered holes emphasize the glow of the subtle vibrant hues that in actuality are burnt details, illuminating a certain flow of ambiance. This is parallel to how, over time, you managed to consider your collection of scars that once inflicted disturbance and hurt on you as beauty marks, embracing them as a stamp of a hero’s victory that carries stories. At the end of the day, what makes you uniquely firm and tied to confidence is the hardship that you overcome and the wounds that left you scars, marks that will keep reminding you about the moments you endured pain and persevered against it.
Pain Beautified invites us to engage not just in the outcome but also in the process of invention. To recognize and appreciate the noteworthy, delicate, and laborious journey into total greatness. Like a diamond in the rough, efforts were made to refine, develop, and polish it in order for its potential to remold itself into its eminent state. Revisiting Allain Hablo’s Pain Beautified will once again strike not just our eyes but will feed our curiosities that will push our minds into its boundaries. With the artist’s unique approach to art expression, he opens a space for us to appreciate the temporal quality of elements, while emphasizing the flaws that embrace them, birthing a new sense of perception and beauty.
Join us and ignite your ability to subjectively see and comprehend certain subtleties of beauty that come with and through pain with works of Allain Hablo.
Exhibition notes by Layang Irog
