I Made You Soft So I Can Hold You
A solo exhibit at Post Gallery
I Made You Soft So I Can Hold You, Tin F Garcia’s first solo exhibit since the pandemic, is a visceral survey of the loss and heartbreak brought about by recent events. One of the central pieces in the exhibit—a 16-foot-tall Alice in Wonderland doll—captures the overwhelming and suffocating feeling of grief. This immense figure symbolizes how grief can define us, becoming an inescapable, even monolithic, part of our lives.
The mixed-media works in I Made You Soft So I Can Hold You explore the tangible nature of grief — after all, isn’t grief a crushing force? The heart sinks, and the chest collapses. Breath leaves the lungs. The Japanese even coined a term for it: takotsubo cardiomyopathy, or broken-heart syndrome.
Here, the artist sought to transform the harsh, sharp edges of grief into something softer and more approachable. By making grief something that can be held, Tin explored the possibility of embracing and coming to terms with this profound emotion, rather than being consumed by it.
Adding to the theme is a triptych depicting scenes from Alice in Wonderland, with the characters appearing mid-fall or drowning. These scenes symbolize the sense of being overwhelmed and the loss of control that grief can bring. The act of falling reflects the sudden plunge into sorrow while drowning evokes the suffocating, inescapable nature of grief.
There is also a series of five round canvases, each depicting a recognizable character from Alice in Wonderland, illustrating the stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance (DABDA). Each canvas captures a distinct emotional state, using the familiar yet fantastical characters to convey the universality and timelessness of these experiences. By aligning each stage with a character, Tin shows how grief is a journey with varied emotional landscapes, each stage bringing its own challenges and reflections.
The imagery emphasizes the disorienting and consuming aspects of grief, portraying it as a descent into unfamiliar and often terrifying emotional depths.
Driving the theme further are the resin and 3D-printed pieces that take the shape of a decaying, fly-infested tea party. The medium of resin, with its ability to preserve and encapsulate, locks decay in a state of painful stasis.
The choice of grey for a number of the pieces reflects the numbing, all-consuming nature of grief, draining color and joy from life. The shade mirrors the void left by loss and the fragile facade we present to the world.
— Iñigo de Paula
I Made You Soft So I Can Hold You runs from July 6 to August 10, 2024, at Post. The gallery is located at Shop 7, Cubao Expo, Araneta Center, Cubao, Quezon City 1109.