ARNDT Catalogue Manila

GABBY BARREDO
Entering the artist’s workshop in a Manila suburb is like walking
into a laboratory found only in the pages of science fiction.
Here one finds discarded objects salvaged from junk shops,
or donations by friends who were clearing out their houses.
Under Gabriel Barredo’s hands, these unwanted materials are
given new purpose. Old action figures, limbless dolls, saints in
plastic, car parts, rubber strips, animal bone, art book cutouts,
miniscule lights, and tiny motors. Almost like a scientist, he
cuts, refashions, gilds, welds, and glues them together into an
intricate, mechanical mass. What results is captivating and oneof-a-kind
kinetic art, some of which are towering in scale.
But the potency of Barredo’s work does not only lie in the flawless
regeneration of rescued material and its definitely amusing light
and electric circuitries. In fact, his work is very severe. It is littered
with details that remind us of the endless horrors and hypocrisies
of life: hunger, war, death, and decay. A screaming head here, an
impaled figurine there. There is no attempt to sugarcoat these
displays of darkness, whether they are personal or collective in
nature. Like Bosch and Brueghel, Barredo continues art’s long
tradition of depicting the monstrous and the malign. In such acts,
we are confronted with the blade-sharp truths and are provoked
to emotion.