Rachel Rillo’s Frozen Actualities

Rachel Rillo, "A Year's Luck"

We made it a point to come in early for Carlos Celdran’s fantastic Livin’ La Vida Imelda at SLab. With every performance sold out, we wanted to make sure to secure our seats. A move we did not regret as we had prime spots from which we spent the next two and a half hours doubled up in laughter.

Arriving thirty minutes before show time also gave me the chance to absorb Rachel Rillo’s Frozen Actualities at Silverlens, the only Manila gallery that primarily mounts photography exhibits. I had caught the show briefly on opening night, but as that occurred at the thick of our preparations for Art In The Park, I could not fully appreciate Rachel’s work then.

The objects Rachel captured in 14 photographs appear cast in marble, alabaster against a burnished background. She actually painted these everyday items white before shooting them against backdrops she had also deliberately aged. To me they recall headstones, banal objects turned into dignified memorials. They remind me of how Ai Wei Wei transformed a classic piece of Chinese furniture into his Marble Chairs. More likely as not, Rachel chose her innocuous repertoire— a broom, a colander, a collection of jars and shells— for their interesting angles and clean curves, plus the pleasing, somewhat whimsical, way groups of them gelled.

Frozen Actualities runs from 9 February to 15 March 2012 at Silverlens Gallery, 2F Yupangco Bldg., 2320 Pasong Tamo Extension, Makati City. Phone (632) 816-0044 or visit www.silverlensphoto.com