Words and Images Space Encounters Gallery
Editing The Kanto team
“Of all the means of expression, photography is the only one that fixes a precise moment in time.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
Photography captures the fleeting and transforms it, offering a way to witness and reinterpret the world through the photographer’s lens. Capture and Release, the latest exhibition at Space Encounters Gallery, reflects on solitude, transitions, and the spaces in between that quietly shape our lives. It invites viewers to contemplate the delicate act of holding onto a moment while letting it evolve, uncovering deeper layers of meaning.
The works on display present seven distinct approaches to impermanence and memory, from Toto Labrador’s meditations on life’s quiet intervals to JL Javier’s collages, which weave landscapes into deeply personal narratives. This interplay of preservation and transformation alludes to the philosophies of Alfred Stieglitz and Henri Cartier-Bresson, legendary lensmen who saw photography as a medium that could distill time and reveal profound truths.
At its heart, Capture and Release asks how photography can shape our understanding of transience. Works like Cru Camara’s studies of color and change, or Johann Guasch’s intimate macro landscapes, challenge viewers to see captured moments not as fixed but as endlessly evolving. Meet the seven photographers on show below:
Cru Camara
Cru Camara’s exploration of color and sequence unfolds a vivid conversation between blue and green, tones echoing the soulful cadence of the jazz standard Blue in Green. “Blue recedes into a distant memory,” they muse, “while green emerges with urgent vitality, embodying a possibility of renewal.” Through striking triptychs, Camara captures the bittersweet beauty of transition, crafting a meditation on impermanence where shadow and gesture converge to remind us that every ending carries the spark of a beginning.
Toto Labrador
In The In Between, Toto Labrador’s lens lingers in the unnoticed spaces of life, the pauses that quietly frame moments of significance. “The intervals that seem empty are where I spend most of my time,” he reflects. These still, meditative compositions transform the mundane into an exploration of resonance, revealing the poetry in life’s overlooked corners.
Iteration II Here
JL Javier
Standing amid the vast desert landscapes of Nevada, JL Javier found solace in the simultaneous enormity of the world and the intimacy of their own smallness. “It wasn’t despair but a quiet peace,” they recall. In layered collages, Javier reclaims these landscapes for Space Encounters Gallery, transforming fragments of memory into a personal geography. Here, smallness becomes a site of wonder, a space to dream.
Johann Guasch
Johann Guasch’s macro photography expands the intimate into the infinite. Through meticulous study of form and texture, his subjects, ordinary and often ignored, become vast terrains of exploration. Each frame invites viewers to pause, finding grandeur in the delicate and the infinite within the minute.
Ed Simon
Ed Simon uncovers the sculptural grace of vegetables, stripping them of color to showcase their essence through stark black-and-white imagery. Armed with a Linhof 4×5 camera, Simon focuses on texture, contrast, and form. “By reducing the visual elements to their essentials, I reveal the intricate beauty hidden in the everyday,” he says.
Ulap Chua
In Solitude is Quietude, Ulap Chua navigates the dualities of loneliness: “I hold so many dear, yet at times, I feel utterly alone.” Chua’s images explore the serenity found within chaos and the solace embedded in introspection. These photographs delicately examine humanity’s unspoken need for connection alongside the tempestuous grace of solitude.
Chua expands this theme through collaborative works, including On Care and Mosquito Nets, a project captured in La Union alongside James Harvey Estrada and Eneas Prawdzic. Reflecting on Prawdzic’s evocative performance, Chua frames it as “a quiet reckoning with a complicated colonial past and the turbulence of reconciliation.”
In Nothing and No One in Tabora, Chua finds solitude in the bustling heart of low-cost retail mecca Divisoria. “I pride myself in knowing its ins and outs,” Chua confesses, “yet I often leave feeling like something essential remains elusive.”
Megadike Naps depicts pause amidst activity at the Dampalit Megadike. “I realized I didn’t need to push myself. Like the napping dog I photographed, I could stop and just take it all in—a stinky, serene peace.”
Curtis Richard
Curtis Richard’s images radiate the vibrant soul of his journeys through the lens of a Hasselblad 500C/M. Whether in Singapore or Bali, Richard captured the spirit of each place through vivid, personal encounters. “Each image embodies the unique energy and essence of these vibrant locations,” he says, his compositions blending subject, environment, and an artist’s thoughtful eye.
Capture & Release is up for the whole of January 2025 at Space Encounters Gallery, Unit 7D, Padilla Building, F. Ortigas Jr. Road, Ortigas, Pasig City. For more information on the show or interest in any of the pieces, email spacegallery.info@gmail.com. Follow @spaceencountersgallery on Facebook and Instagram to keep abreast on show announcements and future exhibitions. •
