Fragments | Jay Ragma

One of the foremost practitioners of linear abstraction, Jay Ragma this time investigates the nature of memory, how we remember certain events with clarity and how others recede into oblivion.

The impetus of the show was occasioned by the artist’s visit to his grandmother who, by the looks of it, suffers from dementia. As the artist was about to leave, his grandmother asked about how his mother and brother were doing. Ragma understood at that moment that certain recollections still persist despite the evident neurological issues.

Using plexiglass for the first time and working with its transparency, the artist applies his signature lines, which intersect, crisscross, and create a highly-layered surface, approximating the neural pathways that transmit messages from different parts of the brain. Some lineations are more pronounced than others, suggesting the memories that continue to linger, overlapping with and blotting out others.
Even without this association, the power of Ragma’s works derives from the artist’s keen and intuitive use of lines that suggest density, momentum, and complexity. The most fundamental among the visual elements, the line is electrified by the artist to establish a mode of abstraction that is both propulsive and profound.

Words by: Carlomar Arcangel Daoana