ABOUT THE WORK

An artist with a driving avant-garde impulse, he broke academic barriers to strikeout his own as he launched into an intense personal engagement in art making. And while one could easily describe his art as epitomizing post-colonial discourse, for him the condition of coloniality seethes just beneath the surface like a lingering fever. It is possible to group Santiago Bose’s work, in general, into four periods: his first mature period in the late 1970s and early 1980s, his sojourn to the United States from 1980 to 1986; the period of his return from 1986 up to 1993, and the period from 1994 to his death. The issues of identity, marginalization, and struggle came to the fore during Bose’s sojourn to New York. During his stay in the United States, Bose sensitively captured in his work the experience of exile, alienation, and nostalgia for one’s country that accompanied the Filipino diaspora. Painted on a cargo box lid, “Journey to a Vanishing Horizon” can be anywhere whether in the United States or the Philippines, and the guesses are even more heightened with the presence of a vintage mid-century car, but the title of the work speaks volumes about the uncertainty faced by migrant workers. The fact that the image is painted on a wooden cargo box lid seems to reflect the disposability, so to speak, of the overseas contract workers.