All The Luck You Need (XX.XX)

“This is the last piece I did before everything in the world took a massive spin for the uncertain . Made in January 2020, I sought to make a tableau/still life thinking of the new decade opening up before us . On the heels of my last solo show “Self-Portraits and Tropical Gothic”, I return my attention to plants (a recurring theme in my work) and remember how much we as Filipinos have the natural predilection for ritualizing beginnings with auspicious symbols, as evidenced in the objects placed in the home; a part of our collective memory and identity . That luck, fate, destiny, the wheel of fortune, the hand of god, kapalaran— is all at work as we face the ebbs and flows of a vivid sundrenched Filipino reality that can also certainly be grotesque and gothic .  In a manner that I do in-camera collage, I have gathered our common lucky plants — lucky bamboo, pothos, spider plant, rubber plant, fortune plant, snake plant, peace lily, jade plant—in a setting against a variety of cut fabrics (retazos and refuse) that play with the eye with energetic colors, a wish for health, for money, for fortune, or just to be sure, yes to life, yes to all . On a not-so-distant hindsight, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy and proposal for new leaves, new beginnings . May we have all the luck we need . XXXX”

—Wawi Navarroza,
May 9, 2020
sheltering in place,
Makati PH

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signed and numbered, verso
with Certificate of Authenticity

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