Galerie Stephanie May 2-25, 2025

LOOK INTO A DAYDREAM

Thea Quiachon's Glimpse into the Dreamer's Reality

Figures and layers of paint give these otherwise blank canvases a picture, but only barely. The figures we do see are something yet nothing: unidentifiable people, vague landscapes and origami figures seemingly made out of wet tissue. The pictures tell a story, but it is neither here nor there.

In this exhibit, Quiachon tries to picture what it is that dreamers see in the mundane, but only the dream parts uninterrupted by either noise of dream and reality. Each painting is someone's day to day as viewed through the lenses of a tomorrow hoped for. Nebulous the figures are they take on a concrete identity as a whole, a picturesque view of somewhere that isn't in front of their eyes.

The exhibit is an anthology of people who tread two paths and every painting is a photograph of both.

A TOUCHING EXHIBIT YOU SHOULDN'T TOUCH

Ciane Xavier, Ganavee Lazaro, Jezzel Wee, Marco Rosario and Mikee Naval's Softly, Firmly

Ceramic is weird stuff, it starts out soft and pliable but after you fire it up it becomes stiff and brittle that attempting to do what you did a while ago will net you either nothing or a pile of shards.

This group exhibition shows ceramic as a medium of paradox, how a malleable thing can become hard set and how though hard set it still keeps its softness in its curves.

Xavier's heads are akin to portraits of a mind in the midst of an emotion, each face molded to the mind it contains.

Lazaro recreates the use of clay in devotion by making small objects that would look like they are used in some sort of ritual, may it be a tool or an object of worship. The softness in form evokes the rather primitive means primitive men made their idols.

Wee's trees take on a dynamic form against the static ceramic, mimicking the branches sawing in the wind. The sculptures are also incense cone holders so if used this way the smoke will create a finicky canopy that is jus subject to the winds.

Rosario's shapely fruits are dressed up (also in ceramic), the flower vases shaped nothing like the usual ones, as these ones are round, bulbous and seemingly unstable, the fruits (pun intended) of the artist's struggle to soften the ceramic through form.

Naval's objects are the most practical of the bunch, as they should; they represent practicality itself. The "Panali" series places eponymous tying material through each object as marks of resourcefulness.

Each piece is about ceramic itself, its versatility, its properties and its ubiquity, as these works tend to share the same appearance as kitsch.

FAITH-ALL-YOU-CAN

Farley del Rosario's Divine Code Switch

Syncretism on asteroids as religious imagery is mixed into a blend that just won't coagulate. If all creeds are equally valid and all beliefs are true what comes out is something close to this exhibit.

Every caricature is an image of a messed-up quest for meaning and enlightenment, an icon to the conclusions to every sojourn fueled by vibes and whatever else is needed to have something one can call faith. Divine depictions are a who's who of surface conceptions of deities and human portraits feature men not as visionaries but as spiritual interest stories.

Del Rosario's exhibit shows the ultimate consequence of the ideal secular world where as nothing is sacred everything becomes sacred: you get a divine free-for-all.

Chapter 7

Torahiko and Hideki stand in front of the gallery floor, dimly lit and all of the pieces on display covered in tarp. They flip the main lights on and walk in.

"Something weird's going on with my exhibit, one of my statue's been moving." Hideki pulls the sheet off the statue.

"Aren't they made out of thin bars? Maybe it's buckling under its own weight."

"Would buckling explain why every time I open the gallery it's always in a different pose? The other thin bar pieces aren't moving."

"Have you checked the

They watch recordings from previous nights, showing the center sculpture moving under the tarp.

"See?"

"Yeah, like it wants to get out of the gallery."

"I think it's doing that already, look." The live feed shows the figure moving more actively than recorded earlier.

"Don't make a noise, okay? Let's go."

The walk from the control room to the gallery proper is about a couple of minutes, so by the time they go in and Hideki flips on the light, it's as if nothing happened. They approach the sculpture in question, still as it ought to be.

"I think it found out." Hideki whispers.

"It's trying to trap us, I can feel it. You keep distance, I'll deal with this myself."

Torahiko takes a slow walk through the gallery, keeping a 

Suddenly they hear metal creaking and look at the sculpture. It starts walking off its platform and goes straight for the two. Torahiko pushes Hideki out the way and the sculpture grabs him by the neck.

"Tora!"

With all his strength he takes hold of what's choking him and starts bending it out of his neck. Free again he gets his halberd out and swings at it, but the thing grabs his weapon and barely avoids being thrown off by letting go of his halberd at the right time to get a sort of jump onto the contstruct and try to pin it to the ground. Though the metal man keeps taking swings, the blond musters the energy to resist the attemps to overpower him. He notices one of the pieces of glass inside the construct glow, and amid the struggle he snatches it out of the sculpture, which stops and returns to the hunk of brass it should be.

"Is... is it over?"

"I think so; I think I took the heart out." Torahiko shows Haruki the piece.

"Heart?" He walks to the sculpture. "There's supposed to be nothing on that chest cavity, remember?"

"A break-in to put something, weird." He looks at what he extracted. "It's glass."

"Is it just me or is it glowing inside?"

The glass sphere makes one large flash startling the two. Torahiko looks at the glowing glass sphere once more.

"Is that what's making it move?"

"Yeah, but it can't seem to move this ball."

"Does that mean it's safe?"

"I don't think go, but just to be sure, I'm showing this to the other mates. Need help fixing the piece?"

"Thanks, and if you want I can get you a recording of the fight."

-----

"Tora?" Keizo calls out. "How did it go?"

"Sculpture almost tried to kill me."

"Try?"

"It went for me, lunged at me, the whole thing."

"Was it moving on its own?"

Torahiko pulls out the sphere from his pocket. "When I pulled this out it stopped."

"That doesn't look like something Hideki makes." He takes a closer look. "So you think there's something inside that that was possessing the statue?"

"For sure."

"I don't want that thing causing chaos in here, you better keep an eye on that."

"I'm gonna give this to one of my other mates later, he might find some idea."

"By the way, they're planning to check the gallery later; Hideki's announced it in chat."

"I'll tell the others, then."

"Good idea. Where are you gonna keep that ball?"

"In my bed, I wanna go back to sleep."

"If it starts moving?"

Torahiko holds up a slipper.

"You know how to deal with it, then."

-----

Kitsutsuki checks the social media feeds first thing in her shift. "Why are we getting mentions again?" She takes a look at the notifications and finds herself looking at a piece of viral news.

She enters the group room. "Crazy news, guys, someone managed to snap another picture of Nadehiko in incognito mode. We had such a good run not bringing that up again."

"How is this different?"

"The media guys are realizing that the guy with the powers that looks like the Spitfires captain may be the mystery guy seen with Rina. Look, his name's on the headline."

Nadehiko comes in. "Okay team, let's.. Is there a problem?"

"The media guys are realizing that you're the invisible dude."

"Those guys?"

"Check this out." She shows him the picture, from a date between him and Rina. "Someone still found you even though you're hiding. What were you doing, anyway?"

Cue the flashback. The two were in the middle of a date at a small café, Rina waiting for Nadehiko to return with their orders. She scrolls through her social media feed mindlessly until a piece featuring her boyfriend shows up. 

"You know, I almost forgot you're supposed to have powers now." She says as he arrives with the coffee and cakes.

"It's best I keep it as hidden as I can, though." 

"You say that like you even bother to change into the invisible man whenever you save the day. Where could he be, by the way?" She says teasingly.

"Let me try to call for him." He makes himself vanish. "Someone wanted me?"

Rina giggles. A few feet away a paparazzo makes quick work of his camera, snapping a show of the couple while Nadehiko turns visible.

"There was enough plausible deniability that they were two different people, but with this video?" Kitsutsuki groans. "You'll have to come clean. It's bound to happen, this secret only had about a month."

"Did Masato say anything?"
"He trusts you to be able to handle what might happen next, that's what he told me."

"So the world will get to know about my powers..."

"You'll be fine. Guys, I still have that meeting to go to, so if anyone calls asking about Nadehiko you know who to go to." On her way out she almost bumps into someone she hasn't seen before: a blond male.

"I'm so sorry! Did I hit you?"

"No, I'm... fine." She eyes the man from head to torso, "You're fine too..." she mutters looking his arms, then quickly looks up to his eyes when she notices. "I haven't seen you before, are you looking for someone?"

"Yeah, Nadehiko Izuki, is he here?"

"He's in the lobby over there. Uh, I gotta go now, see you again!" She leaves, while Torahiko watches on confused.

"Hey, something happened at the other gallery."

"Yeah?"

"One of the statues tried to kill me."

"Which statue?"
"The big one that looks like a man, went for me and only me. Good thing I took out what's making it move, I think."

"You have it with you?"

Torahiko pulls it out of his pocket.

"It's glowing."

"Weird how it can control a sculpture but couldn't bother to roll itself out of my custody."

"Hasn't it tried to posses anything else?"

"No, or if it did it wasn't obvious."

"Yeah, carrying it around in your pocket like that's still not a great idea."

"I know, I might make a cage later. So, are you busy today?"

"I'm going to an esports event later. Why, you need me for something?"

"They're checking the scene later, would love to have you and the others be there."

"This one's pretty important for the Spitfires so I can't drop it. Toshiro isn't on today either."

"Maybe tomorrow then."

-----

"Hey, is he still here?" Kitsutsuki asks as she returns.

"Who?"

"Your friend, the guy with the arms- in the black tank?"

"...He left a while ago."

"Shoot."

"You need him for something?"

"You should've introduced him earlier!"

"Did you spend your meeting daydreaming about him?"

"No!" She turns red. "I didn't think one of your new teammates would be so handsome."

"And I, the face of the Spitfires, am not?"

"You are, but you already have Rina. Is he single?"

"I don't know, you ask him."

"He's coming back, right?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't he? You know, I could just send him a message and tell him-"

"Don't! It would be so embarrassing."

"If you say so, you'll just wait for him?"

"Could you at least tell me his name?"

"It's Torahiko, Kurogane."

Kitsutsuki jots the name down on her notebook. "Got it, now let's talk about the fan event."

"I know you've been looking for the best time to announce your invisible thing, but you have to do it ASAP, and this event's the perfect opportunity, so how will you tell them?"

"I'm going to show that I can become invisible, simple. Just how much are they talking about me?"

"These sites are already expecting you to address what happened at... Torahiko's gallery? They'll surely ask you about your powers if they can."

"I'll do it when someone does interview me post-game, like the ones posting about me."

"You could be hiding your new superhero stint, you know, you even have the ability to be faceless. But no, I have to add hero PR to my job description."

-----

"We're about to meet the new team managed by a familiar name, Masato Matsuoka. Here's Spitfires captain Nadehiko Izuki to talk to us about the team."

"Hey."

"Great performance last few games, you're really going for the big leagues as you mentioned before..."

The formal interview over, here comes the miscellany.

"Just for fun, I'm sure you've gotten this comment before, but you look like you've been working out."

"Yeah, I've changed my routine a bit."

"Surely you're not wearing that shirt for nothing, show us what you have!"

Nadehiko pulls his shirt up, already having made his waist vanish beforehand, hiding what his tight-fit shirt's implying.

"Whoa, those are definitely results, tell us your secret."

"It's a secret for a reason."

Fans start chanting "Take it off!" He pulls his shirt down, which would usually cause disappointment but instead brings out more curiosity. Nadehiko retreats to the team's spot while a few journos follow. Kitsutsuki and an assistant, expecting this, handle the curious witnesses.

On short notice, the presser is done makeshift on someone else's table.

"So what would this mean for the team?" A journo asks.

"We didn't make any lineup changes, so we're still sticking to our plan."

"How confident are you with handling these two jobs?"

"To be honest, I'm still getting used to these powers, but I know I can persevere through."

"There have been more reports of activities from what seems to be the successor to the Shin Akuma cult, and the leader's last public appearance said that he wants to eliminate, quote, an invisible man, is it likely that you are said target?"

"Yes, but let's leave it at that for now."

-----

In the cult's main headquarters everyone is currently busier with more mundane matters.

"So, has the trap been laid for one of our enemies?"

"Yes, it should work any time now."

"Good, that should be one less-"

"Master," another disciple barges in, "our insider has just told us that control of the statue has been removed."

"Dammit! I will make myself known to them, soon enough. Prepare the rituals, we will need more power for our next move."

-----

Nadehiko picks Rina up at her work.

"Hey, how did the event go?"

"It was great." His face says otherwise.

"Did something happen?"

"No, it's... it's official now."

"You told them? Aww, I could have had a boyfriend with a secret superhero identity. You should have stayed invisible last fight."

"I think I've heard of a series like that. Having to keep hiding yourself sounds exhausting, though."

"Isn't that one of your powers?" She smiles coyly. "But if you don't want to, and you don't have to, it's fine, you're still my superhero boyfriend."

---

After dropping her girlfriend at her place, Nadehiko returns to his apartment, although tired his mind is busy thinking about the road ahead, leading two teams in two different realms. He quietly dozes off in his couch while thinking.

Later, his phone rings out a chat message, waking him up.

"hey, we need your help" is the message from Torahiko.

"is it about the gallery?"

"yeah, tomorrow good?"

"sure, I'll bring the others."

"great."  "btw, i read they're changing your team's name."

"what now"

-END

Finally went to Mitsukoshi BGC, I don't think I've ever been to a mall with lower ceilings, but I'm surprised about the out in the open layout that most malls here don't take. I did get a new puzzle gashapon for my troubles, and with new branches popping up closer to home I'm sure excited.

Yesterday was a taxing trip looking at hundred and thousands of figurines at Greenhills, the place to go for shelf fillers. I wasn't alone in this; my cousin had planned to look for a certain Funko pop in those stores.

Little did we know how much effort this took.

While the central mall is seeing improvements nowadays, most of the shopping center is still that notorious mess of stores hidden in nooks and crannies you least expect. Some secret cavern deep inside the mall can only be unlocked by a password and inside is cellphone repair.

Two underestimations: The amount of stores selling fandom collectibles and how rare a Derrick Rose Funko with a poster inside the box is. In the course of this search we've found other things of interest and even a gashapon haven, but still none of what we're looking for.

A shame, really. A place with the same store density as Kowloon's residencies would probably have that kind of toy just out of sheer probability, but no such luck that time. I'm not too fond of figurines myself, then again I am not engrossed in any single fandom nor do I have the disposition.

Well, we didn't find it and ended up buying something else for all that effort. Can't wait to come back.

Not a lot to report for yesterday, money and time felt tight and I went carrying a bag full of origami kusudama models, gauging how much of a burden it would be to commute and how I might approach selling them if at all.

The opening hour means a long line extending down a stairwell, any longer and it will wind back up. While in line on the way to the ticket booth, someone from the Pocky booth approached us for a sample and a ticket promo, causing the group behind me to discuss the merits of taking the promo and scalping the ticket.

Inside I headed straight for the artist tables and had an opportunity to show my wares to one seller whose table is decorated with a few hanging charms. I asked about the paper and they also came from Daiso, albeit in a design not available here as of this writing. I hopped to another table to commission a character and an older lady (someone's mother from what I can remember) noticed me beforehand and asked me about my kusudama. She bought one for my only sale of that day, returning less from the commission I did get.

Later on I met up with a streamer friend, then had some lunch. Looking for a place to eat took a while as every place was full, not unusual for a con Sunday in Megamall. Mother was with me to shop and she had to settle for the supermarket eatery as she could not find any place that wasn't crowded.

I returned to said friend in the middle of a photoshoot, he's the one holding the camera. I sat there for a while as by then my legs were tiring out. I had a bit of a chat with someone, Michael, who was there to learn taking cosplay photos. He's a cook by trade and from wanting to take his own product photos for online selling he's expanding his craft to make photography an extra expertise.

One side of Mall A is under construction, blocking out a decent number of stores including about four galleries at the fourth floor. The only gallery still up was hosting a painter's history of paintings, though that space mostly hosts painting exhibits anyway.

Chapter 6

A quick rundown of this weekend. A combined celebration took place at an aunt's place in Cainta yesterday. Three birthdays combined with the gender reveal of my sister's second kid. I missed out on most of the fun as I had to cater to someone who due to reasons I cannot disclose cannot join the celebrations per se. We went to a nearby mall and I ordered some KFC for him.

The mall is pretty tiny compared to the average mall in Metro Manila, it had a Daiso, which is enough for me. Unsurprisingly most items in there are about the same as in every other branch, including origami papers, so I settled on a pair of scissors that I wanted to get.

I arrived at the place to have a bit of what's left of the party food then not really do anything until we went home at midnight.

Next day, which as of typing this ended a while ago, my mother and I went out for Mass at the Center for Padre Pio near Eastwood City. It was a sleepy ordeal to say the least. We didn't even bother spending a minute more in Araneta and headed straight for home in a minibus to sleep in.

A quiet part of Caloocan just got a bit louder. An SM mall just in front of the sports center means one thing, a new hangout to spend an entire afternoon. Opening day, nay, weekend was brutal, with people already piling up at the entrance, the mall had to open earlier.

My first visit was on its second night, a sudden rendezvous with the sister et al. Just the drive was proof; I could have walked there faster compared to the traffic jam, but the jammed up two-lane road is just the beginning.

When we arrived the place was as packed as it can get. 

The mall isn't big, three floors in an area smaller than a wing of the original SM Fairview. The layout is like the usual SM mall save for some spaces left from adding parking lots. This combined with proximity and the usual area resident's favorite pastime of hanging out in air-conditioned malls and you have yourself a crowded mall.

Every food place is packed and there's nary a corner where a number of people have gathered to take pictures. We only managed to buy fries and shakes (the kiosk had limited options and ingredients because there's just that many), and this was on the second day, at the closing couple of hours.

Maybe letting the opening hype fizzle out will make things better. Yes and no. This Tuesday my mom wanted to check the place out. We went there by lunchtime and it's not that populated. A few days later, namely just this Friday we returned just for the heck of it and slowly but surely people were everywhere again, not as crowded as the first days but close enough.

Having grown up going to malls larger and fancier, I'm certain I'll be going here often only because a trip is cheaper. That's reason enough for me.

Many assume that the entirety of Metro Manila is the same. But living in the part of the region that isn't either an urban metropolis or a poverty documentary hotspot, the sorts of places you get in a lifestyle magazine are a ways (and means) from me. Funny then that I start like this when I'm just going to do a quick update on a dental visit.

Manila is a city that's grown on itself as time passes, and it shows with its old buildings still standing aloft the new ones being made next to them. Residents live amongst pieces of history as they carve their own in this place that has been messy even before Legazpi staked his claim.

Last January 20, my family paid a visit to a dentist who's more or less family (they're second cousins). The car trip involves a transition from the loud and modern bustle of Quezon City to the aged streets of Manila, stuck in time yet it moves along. 

We arrived at the office over at Lacson Avenue, which is just a walk from my university. The place itself looks like a living room that someone rearranged into a dental clinic. The front lobby is about 2 feet by 5 feet large with a TV next to a fridge. Separated by glass is the clinic proper, inside is a desk and two chairs, one awfully close to the door. There is air conditioning but it's hard to notice. I had some time to kill before my turn so I did a bit of a stroll to the old road where I'd get a bit to eat in my college days, Dapitan Street. Some of the old buildings still stand, but there were new faces made and old faces being torn down, the area around the university still prone to change as ever.

I had no time to enter the university proper but the differences in the street I regularly walked for years from a decade ago and now are noticeable.

As for my teeth, I had a cleaning and a rather deep filling, there will be a return visit, maybe I'll actually jot down something for another piece; our attempt at trying out a famous eatery ended on a closed shop.

Chapter 5

Been a while since I posted here, so let me do a quick recap of another traipse.

No thanks to rerouting did a once simple trip to Eton Centris require me to take a train one station away, not counting the extra walking. The events place Elements isn't even close to the station, giving you an opportunity to look at how sparse the area actually is. You see, Eton Centris feels more like a company town or a stopover than a shopping center: Mostly outdoors, 24/7 open eateries, call centers, its location at a busy intersection nowhere near a residence compensated by a railway station. There are still shoppers to merit shops selling non-perishables, but most of  the patron you'll see there are taking a break from work.

Right, onto the event proper. Elements as a venue is a large version of a wedding reception or debut venue. It's large enough for a proper con but isn't really suited for it. This is my second excursion to this place, the first one also an art marketplace prompted by an artist's post on their social. Surprisingly I came in early enough to get in for free, so the next step is to look for the only reason I even bothered: a streamer I watch. My only hints are her username and art style, not enough information in a place where there are over a hundred other artists showing off their wares.

There's a lot of people, a lot of tables, I'd list the sorts of people that are in there but if I did I'd be put on a different list. To say I understand nothing about the fandoms and the witty quips on the typography would be an understatement, but then again this is how it usually goes for me. I have grown tired of the sassy statement merchandise to be honest, but a generation speaks this way and I worry.

Soon enough I find who I'm looking for, to be nice about this without disclosing any information: the usual discrepancy between an online persona and its owner is more striking if the former is in the form of a drawing. It's always a great surprise to introduce yourself as this and that, but you can only pull that off once. I bought a couple of commissions and a sticker, being the broke guy that I am, and went back on train to Trinoma once I'm done and had a late lunch.

The mess of construction in that area meant that the bridge between Trinoma and SM North Edsa has been cut off, now people have to cross the busy North Avenue, one of the many factors creating traffic in the already traffic-prone North Ave-EDSA junction. Road traffic is one thing, but both malls are also congested this weekend.

Now let me end with some observations coming from me who's fully aware I won't be there to sell my work: Every alley I've visited has always been the same: a bunch of small artists trying to get by selling not only their creations but their sentiments, it's a real gallery of both freaks and art, but ironically they all seem to be the same; the same messages ring in every other sticker, everyone seems to have the same disposition to life. At that point it's probably the nature of these things to attract such people (maybe also something about the artist psyche), but I do think, and I know what I'm saying, putting a bunch of relative weirdos in a room doesn't really result in a variety of people.

Chapter 4

Chapter 3