Gary Ross Pastrana at BUG, Bangkok

Introduction by Gary Ross Pastrana to his Residency and Exhibition at the Bangkok University Gallery

Art residencies have played an important role in my artistic career. I have been a practicing artist for 10 years, doing mostly concept based art works, which are largely non-income generating. To be able to financially support myself and continue pursuing this kind of art, I have had to take on different odd jobs through the years, which sadly has also taken time away from my artistic production. In retrospect, I realize that my most productive and creative periods are the times I spent in residencies outside my country. There, I was able to focus intensively on investigating new concerns, which led to the production of new bodies of work.

For my upcoming residency and exhibition in Bangkok, you could say that I have already started working on one of the pieces that I plan to include in the show. The work is called Stream (Propeller), 2009-2010. During a recent exhibition here in the Philippines, an old, discarded propeller was slowly sawed (at a rate of around one piece a day, for the duration of the exhibition) into several pieces and sent to the Bangkok University Gallery via airmail. When I arrive in Bangkok, I will attempt to make sense of these pieces and try to reassemble the propeller as close as I can back to its original form. I also collected the sawdust produced from the process of cutting. I will use this sawdust to make an LP (vinyl) record and attempt to make it produce a sound using a turn table.

Another work that I plan to make is like a miniature building, with a facade full of small windows. Inside each window would be a light source, probably a tea light candle floating on a tray filled with water. When you view it from the front, each window would somehow generate a different level of light luminescence and would continue to create countless variations as the candle moves closer or farther from the window’s opening. I’m hoping that the resulting effect would be like an ancient form of an abstract digital screen, with each window acting like a modern pixel.

This exhibition will be curated by Ark Fongsmut.

In collaboration with the collection FarEastFarWest, Hong Kong.