Provenance: Private Collection, Manila

ABOUT THE WORK

Lyra Garcellano’s The Fall was one of the large-scale works in Old Pain, her solo exhibition held at Finale Art File in 2009. Depicted as lying on the floor, her limbs splayed out, her skin as white as paper, the woman seems to have totally surrendered to the force of gravity. A snapshot of a terrible conclusion (was the fall accidental, self-inflected, or brought about by someone?), the painting is haunted by a particular nakedness of emotion that even old pain, in the context of a seemingly inevitable catastrophe, seems to be constantly reawakened.