You are invited to see a selection of my work, “Yearning for Kin,” in a virtual exhibit.

The eleven pieces in this exhibit focuses on our yearning for kin. Unfortunately, because of the platform, we are unable to include sculptures and ceramics. We’ve included one acrylic and four oil paintings on canvas, two intaglio, two lino block, one monoprint and one lithograph prints on paper.

If these were in a different time, my mama would have made hundreds of her “lumpia shanghai,” my sister Rocille would have made huge trays of fresh, rice paper-wrapped lumpia, there will be salabát to drink (fresh, hot ginger tea), trays of rice cakes, mango, lanzones, rambutan, chico and other good things. My papa would have his ukulele or his musical saw, playing “Dahil sa ‘yo.” I would have been inviting people to sign on a guest book and agreeing to show my studio to a few who will promise to be quiet and not bother the other artists. But this year, 2020, everything is different.

On February 27, Akin X Collision Gallery Residency Program invited me to work as one of the artists in their Commerce Court studio and gallery from March to August 2020. In a planned launch party and exhibit, two of my pieces (painting of Abraham and Sarah[1] and sculpture of Carmina[2]) were to be on exhibit in the gallery. Shortly after moving my pieces, easel, canvas and painting materials, the city went on a COVID lockdown on March 16. The launch party and exhibit were both postponed and or cancelled. It was a challenge to work in a city that was closed down and there was very limited access to the use of the gallery space.

On May 25, a police officer under the authority of the Minneapolis Police Department knelt on the neck of George Perry Floyd Jr. for eight minutes and forty-six seconds and watched the breath of life seep away from him. Yet he seemed to have an acted on authority from a wall of support that allowed him to do just that.

It has been said so often that this is a challenging year, “unprecedented,” etc. And this is what we have, as we enter another year, as we yearn for kin, in times like these.

Thank you for visiting this exhibit. Please sign the guest list.

[1] Sarah thy wife shall have a son, Genesis 18:10, https://macconlon.com/2011/08/08/98/

[2] Carmina, https://macconlon.com/2018/02/16/the-breath-between-us/