BROWN STUDY: THE WANDERINGS OF JUAN PIKAS
20 Feb - 23 Mar 2020
Salvador Joel Alonday
ARTFAIRPH / PROJECTS
The tableau of life-size sculptures is the first of a series of tableaus that aim to chronicle the further wanderings of Juan Pikas, a character from an old Visayan folktale, so called “the one-sided man” because he was born with only one leg, an arm, an ear and one eye. Juan initially went on a quest to seek out God so that he may be made “whole”. The original story by an anonymous author was fashioned as a fable about animals conversing and various human characters all with their inquiries about morality – intended as a missionary tool to teach Christian values to the common folk.
The image of Juan Pikas is one often revisited by the sculptor for its potential depth of narrative with the addition of more novel tropes. This is the first set of characters Juan would encounter in this reconfiguring of a fictional quest – not for the purpose that it was originally intended but as a means to approach other themes and introspections. Juan is willfully absent here and in the subsequent tableaus as he is yet to be transformed by this journey.
