Everything Must Go, young artist Eleanor Giron's second solo exhibit at Mag:net Gallery Katipunan, is an act of catharsis, recollection, and release. The paintings in this series are a response to the transitional experience of loss: of innocence, of childhood and its dreams.

Composed of a collection of small oil on canvas works, Giron describes her exhibit as "a garage sale, a memorial, a funeral; a goodbye, and a new life." The artist likens the show to a sale, where assorted things, accumulated and loved over the years, are lumped together and set free to find a new life elsewhere. Empty is best, that is why everything must go, she writes.

The works in the show are a pondering on the past: an act that leaves traces of one's self even if it wasn't meant for it to be. They repeatedly contain references to childhood: a period which, for the artist, was a bittersweet yet carefree, simpler time where one could be oblivious yet very accepting to the reality of one's environment. It is also a response to the fast-changing realities of entering adulthood: where things pass by so fast with little time to think or reflect on these changes.

Everything Must Go intentionally includes paintings produced in different styles, recalling her art and dreams as a young girl. As a child, Giron was fond of "really girly, kiddy things: Barbies, unicorns, pink." This is recalled in the works 'Get off your High Horse' and ' God Please Make me a Princess and Give Me a Wonderland,' which mimic the raw figures and unrestrained crayon sketches of a child's daydream. Small paintings of serial killers, models, and actors also pop out in the show: a reminder of Giron's earlier interests while growing up.

Like transitions and fantasies within a larger narrative of reality, some works exhibit little, if no, similarity at all to the other darker and expressionist paintings in the show. This is a conscious choice on the part of Giron: acknowledging and documenting the transitions in style, process, and techniques that she is undergoing as an artist and at the same time, expressing the wish to be a child again at this point of adulthood.

The choice of images produced may be puzzling, shocking even, but this is all part of the conscious process of catharsis; of going beyond reservations, accepting what has been, and having the courage to let go.

Everything Must Go runs from 17 January to 11 February at Mag:net Gallery Katipunan. Mag:net Gallery, located at 335 Katipunan Avenue, Loyola Heights, Quezon City 1105. For inquiries, contact the gallery at 929.3191 or email info@magnetgalleries.com


Artist Statement

We buy, use, wear out, lose, replace, and throw out. When we lose, we replace- only to find what was lost, and then we throw out because now, we have something new and better. What we had before is now too old; it is junk.

We move to bigger spaces, then we must purchase new items to fill in the void. We move into smaller places, and then we have to throw out because our space is now too little.

Starting over from scratch is always easier than rebuilding. Filling is easier than emptying. At the same time, emptying excess means to fill up somewhere else with junk. Leaving traces of ourselves where we didn't mean for it to be.

Everything Must Go is a garage sale, a memorial, a funeral. Everything Must Go is a goodbye, and a new life.

Empty is best, that is why everything must go.