A VIGIL INTERRUPTED (2020)
Jose Solon Perfecto has unearthed a collection of vessels left behind: wheel wild clay of mixed origins resembling candles left to burn throughout the night. Suddenly extinguished by a gust of sharp, cold wind, the only source of light — five glims withstanding an oppressive darkness with its glow -- goes out with the old world.
In March 2020, reality as the world knew it was halted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly 9 months later, as countries slowly adjust to a New Normal, the artist sits through the longest lockdown from a surftown in the Philippines.
Within such time, Solon Perfecto has fired through 14 hours in his gas kiln to produce five one-of-one ceramics that echo our collective mourning for the past: friends changed, homes left behind, and — worse than a heart forgotten — love that is remembered but no longer there.
With the ceramics held in hand, the prayer lingers: in minute drops as tears, or blood, or sweat — the immaculate glaze of heavy white silica isimprinted where the stoneware was most deprived of breath. The devotion, deep: the vessel opens where there would have been a wick that held the flame; the glass hardens where the wax would have trickled — a measure of the heat and the hours spent in vigil.
In the mouth — the hollow — there is a space that is emptied, or filled, in the wake of something lost. What is it that was lost? And now, in the NOOD world, we find? More importantly, what was the prayer?
Ask if it was answered.
- Aussy A. Perfecto (2020)
