Mark Salvatus's 'Relaxation is a State of Mind' exhibition at The Drawing Room, Manila

Mark Salvatus's exhibition 'Relaxation is a State of Mind' ran from 17 February to 16 March at The Drawing Room in Manila. The show featured 14 paintings from his ongoing Scratchings series (2017–), which include works like 'Scratching Series: Dreams of Time' (2023), 'To Infinity with Many Winds' (2024), and 'A woman in the moon is singing to the earth' (2023). These acrylic paintings on canvas or paper range from 22 to 122 cm tall and display abstract archlike or crackled forms with thin scratchings. An installation titled 'Tools' (2024) consists of 18 glazed ceramic slabs mounted on black tripods arranged on a white table, with one slab featuring a smiley face and others showing finger indentations in earth tones. Another work, 'Waiting' (2024), involves six white plastic chairs each holding 25kg sacks of rice from Thailand, Myanmar, and the Philippines. The exhibition's theme explores way-finding amidst urban chaos, though the works appear visually and thematically disparate without context from Salvatus's broader practice, which often addresses agrarian workers' rights through pieces like 'Hacienda' (2010) and 'Land mines' (2022). The artist's varied oeuvre engages with local life and geopolitics through photography, moving image, painting, and found objects.