Great expectations (Sabong News)
Author
MB Lifestyle
Date
MARCH 07 2022
Galerie Joaquin is proud to present Kenneth John Montegrande’s 14th solo exhibition “Great Expectations,” as a continuation of his first decade celebration as a successful self-taught artist.
Launched with a series of solo exhibitions at various galleries with the aim of exploring the foundations of his artmaking, namely, his spirituality (“A Decade of Montegrande”), his quest for the sublime (“Symphonies of Seas and Skies”), and his personal recognition of the positive influences of sincere friendships and wonderful relationships forged through art (“Magical Harmony”), Montegrande continues to retrospect on what has garnered him successes such as the recognition for being the first Southeast Asian to be included in the collection of Japanese megacollector Yusaku Maezawa, the youngest artist to exhibit at the Malacanan Palace Museum and be included in its prestigious collection, as well as in other museums like Fundacion Sanso, where he has had the honor of exhibiting with Presidential Medal of Merit awardee Juvenal Sanso, within his first decade.
Designed to open on the artist’s birthday, “Great Expectations” not only celebrates the anniversary of being born 43 years ago, but also, coincidentally, marks the artist’s new lease on life and his gratitude for recovering from a particularly virulent case of Covid-19, which left him delirious and weak from a prolonged bout with extremely high fever. Believing that his recovery was both because of expert medical attention and because it was God’s will for him to continue living, Montegrande has focused on his abstraction, which is presented in 10 of the 15 works on exhibit, to express the realization that God works in mysterious, often incomprehensible ways. God to him is like an artist who appears to be splashing random colors and strokes of paint on canvas, with beauty emerging from the chaos that it has been before it was finally made apparent. Montegrande likens randomness and mystery as part of God’s divine plan, which we can only make sense of in God’s own time.
Having been on the receiving end of the miracle of another chance at life, and the various blessings he has received over the past decade, the artist expresses the great expectations that he has of God’s plans for him as well as the great expectations that are made of him, as he forges on the next decade of his artmaking.
