Queer Voices, Freshly Spoken in Ways of Being

Written by: Jair Escandor

Edited by: JT Gonzales

On view these months of May and June, a four-artist pocket exhibition at gallery. sort of.

Ways of Being spotlights fresh queer voices combining in a harmonious exhibition that play off each other’s strengths and vulnerabilities.  Paintings, textiles, and mixed media works are employed to explore self-reflection amidst moments of solitude and camaraderie, and the realizations gleaned during those moments.

The four friends offer a glimpse into the context that they dwell in, where they live their lives, who they live it with, and the highlights that encourage the formation of their individual personhood. They inject a personal touch into these experiences, interpreting them through lenses of queerness, the rave scene and being Filipino.

Mark Hernandez, Shape of my Head, 24x18, acrylic on canvas, (2025)

Mark Hernandez, a newly-graduated Electronics Engineering major from Laguna, is self-taught.  By sheer talent, Mark has snagged shows in prestigious galleries such as Metro and Secret Fresh, as well as Thierry Goldberg in New York.  His works feature figures scattered throughout the established space, inviting us to join moments of brooding.

“A Night to Remember,” for example, represents the self through a young man. It explores those moments at night that many of us are familiar with: staring at a screen while in bed, memories fragmented, recollections replayed, dissatisfaction with the results, and our imagination ultimately self-inserting what should have happened.

Mark Hernandez, among us, 24x18, acrylic on canvas (2025)

“Shape of My Head” expresses an inescapable truth about who we are: our identity is not just our own creation but also a result of an accumulation of experiences: whether good, or bad, or grey.  Our past is just one of the hands that shape the reflection we face in the mirror every day.  In this piece, Hernandez asks us how much of our identity truly is of our own creation, and how much does our past have a hand in it? How much of ourselves is from ourselves?

“Among Us” presents the familiar experience of solitude in the presence of others. The presence of other people around us often begs interaction, but what happens when we don’t? We are left alone with our own thoughts. 

Asaliah Reyes, party w u, 18x24, acrylic, textile, scrap, embroidery (2025)

Asaliah Reyes, a virtual reality inhabitant when they aren’t out at a rave, gives their works a personal touch, blending specific experiences that include the personal.

“party w ũ” explores a rave with a mix of people and anthropomorphic non-people. The choice of colors presents this rave almost in a dreamlike state where we follow the subject’s point-of-view. The anthropomorphic characters kindle a sense of child-like play in a rather mature setting, the subject accepting both his youth and his growth, with the characters he used to play with in his adolescence dancing alongside the community he has now found. All of them play into a scene reflecting where he is now and who he is today. 

Asaliah Reyes, Aspirational Attachment, mixed media sculpture and installation, (2025)

In a more psychological take on identity and relationships, Asaliah’s work titled “Aspirational Attachment” explores attachment styles in a scene featuring two interconnected sculptures that themselves have individual titles. “The Aligned One” represents a secure attachment, and “The Wounded One” represents someone who exhibits insecure attachment styles. “The Aligned One” is covered in a solid-coloured fabric with every thread securely wrapped around the base as if to allude to how people with secure attachment styles are confident and grounded in themselves. Meanwhile, “The Wounded One” has a base that is wrapped with disheveled fabric, alluding to those needing outward validation and security. The audience is invited to cut through the interwoven threads that bind these two, a necessary but painful process for those with anxious attachment styles. 

Mark Tisado, dance 'til dawn, 24x18, acrylic on canvas. (2025)

Mark Tisado, freshly graduated from the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts, in turn presents a series titled “Senses,” acrylic on canvas artworks that detail his quest for belonging. The series follows this quest through the engagement of the five senses, viewed from the lens of a young, 20-something, queer, city dweller navigating life and their forged identity in a post-Covid world.

In “salo-salo,” our central figure engages his taste with the people he’s sharing a meal with. Presumably, it could be his family, but it could also be friends. This is the familiar idea of group meals being one of the few occurrences throughout the day that begs for each person to take a pause and fulfill their hunger in a communal act as old as time.

Mark Tisado, still, 24x18, acrylic on canvas. (2025)

“fixation” features our subject in an embrace with his lover. Their arms are wrapped around each other with their mutual touch sending them into a state of oneness.

“dance ‘til dawn” places our figure in a rave. His sense of sound is engaged by the pulsating beats from the speakers as he dances all night with his fellow ravers - lost in the rhythm and disappearing into the night.

“coffee and u” follows our figure engaged in a more simple, more intimate and more quiet act of camaraderie where senses of smell are heightened by the aroma emanating from the espresso machine.

In our final scene, “still”, we find our subject in an intimate setting with a friend, a familiar one for those who are friends with artists. The two figures engage in an act of creation – conjuring images of one other: one with photography and the other in a drawing book. Both figures are engaging their sense of sight as they try to capture the best angle to present the other in.

Patricia Tierra, The Fields of Us i, scrap textile and cotton thread (2025)

Finally, fiber artist, ceramicist, and print designer Patricia Tierra unveils a series of patchworks entitled “The Fields of Us.”

The series details a major life transition, an event that uproots us from a place of safety into uncertainty, a challenge to the stability of our identity. In Patricia’s work, she explores her experience with being forced to move houses - moving from the home she grew up in, a haven where she formed her identity, to a new home, a blank slate from which she can create new memories and learn more about herself. For many of us, moving entails being thrust into a situation where we are vulnerable and alone. As Patricia herself puts it, when we are in this state, we often find ourselves picking up the pieces we were left with, the lessons imparted to us, the resources we have for ourselves, and the connections that can help us get to our desired outcomes.

In “Fields of Us,” we follow three patchworks, all with the same name but numbered consecutively. We have the first piece, a patchwork of various fabrics woven to follow a harmonious pattern. The second piece begins to unravel, the disheveled state of some of the fabrics indicating a sense of chaos. In the final piece, what we see are no longer the original pieces, but leftover fabrics stitched together, not a pattern at all.

The artists celebrate at their opening -Mark Hernandez, Patricia Tierra, Asaliah Reyes and Mark Tisado

“Ways of Being” takes us from discomfort to nostalgia, from pain to pleasure, and every shade of emotion in between. Yet, we know the story isn’t over, neither for the figures represented in these works, nor for the artists, as self-discovery and self-actualization are never-ending processes - an uncomfortable, cringey, fun, joyous, depressing, euphoric and fulfilling ride we all go through.

Perhaps, with the artists’ personal touch and the diverse set of lenses they employ, the audience may find solace knowing that their own individual experiences are valid and necessary. Each of the artists’ works pose questions for the person-in-formation inside all of us: “how do you just be, and what does that look like for you?”