abacus

kat medina
23 AUG – 09 SEP 2023

🟡 Open Studio [ >> Book a visit ]
15–20 AUG // 10:00am–2:00pm

🟢 Exhibition Launch
23 AUG // 4:00pm – 9:00pm

🟠 Closing Event

09 SEP // 4:00pm –9:00pm

**Artist walkthrough @ 6:00pm

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Making and painting as abacus

An abacus is an ancient counting board that was used thousands of years ago, before the Hindu-Arabic numeral system we know today. Although it is often touted as the predecessor to the modern calculator, the abacus is not an automaton–not a self-operating mechanism following an automated set of instructions. Instead, with the abacus, a bead is assigned a unit, and its bearer actively does the computing: placement making, by the one counting, then becomes the process and material itself for arriving at value.

In a similar vein, Kat Medina’s abacus places making as an experience that weighs and calculates events, time, and relations as much as it considers materials and processes. The artworks in the exhibition invite us to consider physical formats (made with thread, found objects, acrylic, canvas, and recycled paper) and the experiences projected onto them (through biological, psychological, sociopolitical, and temporal-spatial processes) as units. When viewing them, the end goal seems to be to derive value—or meaning—from the work as a whole, yet the individual units to be measured hold as much weight as their totality.

How then does this tension inform the way we look/read/experience artworks? What kind of personal abacus do we draw upon when engaging with the world around us?

—KM + FC, 2023

Exhibition Layout Guide

Artwork Pricelist

KatMedina_ABACUS - Artist Pricelist.pdf

For artwork reservations, email nospace.ph@gmail.com or message us on Instagram.
Gallery hours are from Wed-Sun / 6pm-9pm.

Artist Bio

Kat Medina (1984, Manila) paints and makes installations that are informed by the sentience of the hand and negotiations of looking. She explores the performative aspects of objects through its current presence in contemporary society. Her work has been shown in a number of solo exhibitions such as Forever Folding To Temper A Window To A Siphon Or A Knife, The Drawing Room, Makati (2016); The Solution Before Itself, ESC Project, 98B, Manila (2015) and It’s Hard Being A Being (2013), own studio and residence.

In 2017, Medina was an artist-in-residence at the Programa de Residencias Matadero Madrid (AECID). She was nominated for Asia Pacific Breweries (APB) Foundation Signature Art Prize in 2018. She has been included in international and local group exhibitions: Motions of this Kind: Propositions & Problems of Belatedness, SOAS University of London (2019); Soft Pockets, Sampaguita Projects, Quezon City (2018); Casting Stones Into Still Waters, Mind Set Art Center, Taipei (2018); Elephant In The Room, Salon, Madrid (2017); Traffic, Articulate Project Space, Sydney (2017); The Earth Has Wet Dreams, Baler, Aurora (2018); Mani Obra, Mabini 1335, Mabini, Manila (2018); Yielding Nodes, Para Site Projects, Silang, Cavite (2018); Ganggo, PAN/// 98B Collaboratory (2015); Rugbees, Green Papaya Projects, Quezon City (2013); and Kamias Triennale (2014), Kamias St., Quezon City.

She graduated from Far Eastern University and is currently pursuing a post graduate diploma in Archaeology at the University of the Philippines. She resides in Quezon City.

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