Lot 74: JAIME PACENA II

JAIME PACENA II B. 1980 STRUGGLE OF EXISTENCE Quantity: 2 SIGNED AND DATED 2010 LOWER RIGHT ON THE SECOND PANEL ACRYLIC AND DIGITAL ARCHIVAL INK ON CANVAS, IN 2 PARTS each panel: 91 by 182.5 cm.; 35 3/4 by 71 3/4 in./ 121.5 by 182.5 cm.; 47 3/4 by 71 3/4 in. overall: 212.5 by 182.5 cm.; 83 1/2 by 71 3/4 in.

Jaime Pacena II's work recalls the fleeting, faded images of a waking dream or the hauntings of memory. Merging the concerns of social realism with the visual and contextual approach of surrealism, the artist creates a sandbox where his characters wander, explore, and attempt to reconcile the grand ideologies of peace and unity that human beings universally aspire for, with the baser, more complex truths about human nature.



In particular, "Struggle of Existence" considers the confounding relationship between members of the opposite sex—or, how they exist together, as the title implies—as inspired by both the artist's own experiences as a married man, and the wisdoms of modern pseudo-psychologies. The work further probes Pacena's assemblage of organic figures and geometric shapes, merging dramatic gestures with static planes, to create a series of three-dimensional "puzzle" units. Each piece is defined, individual, and, as a consequence, floats alienated from the others in its own dream-like space, unable to perfectly connect or fit with anything else. The faintest correlations between the units are dissolving dots and lines that superimpose an external link—be it literal platforms such as mobile phones, email, and social media, or deeper connections such as mutual feelings, common interests, provisional understandings, or championed causes—which allows units to "fit" together, albeit imperfectly and sometimes temporarily, in a dysfunctional, if characteristically human way.



A digital and traditional artist, Pacena's work also invariably alludes to his process. Intimating organic possibilities between the two media, the work evidences an appraisal of digital manipulation's potential, yet defers, if for the time being, to the conceits of the tangible and the traditional.



-Yonina Chan