Eternal Sanctum was presented at the Palazzo Mora during the 58th Venice Biennale. It consists of twelve large panels that span about seven and half meters high by four and a quarter meters wide. This shift in scale, the marked interest in depth, the exploration of techniques to achieve this aspiration for dimensionality is an interesting turn in his art.

 

Napay’s art references the enduring tradition of tapestry; however he does not use a loom nor weave
in the traditional sense. He sews and stitches sprawling sceneries and expanse of forms instead. Viewing the works in parts or whole, whether in the active process of making or the stillness of display, we realize the artist has succeeded in condensing both the rudimentary and the complex - an equation to guide his vision and understanding of the creative process that weaves Napay’s works into a fascinating web.

 

There is surety and calm assurance
in Napay’s work rhythm, his art integral to the ordinary hum of his days – whether shopping for textile and thread, twining multicoloured threads from numerous spools, mechanically sewing or manually stitching. They signify places we have seen or been to, and in there thrives in them a sliver of the fantastic: impenetrable forests pulsing with life, vibrant with colour, and teeming with sound. The fantastic warrants that these sites may very well be those we imagine or yet to see, yearned for destinations that Napay visualises and realises for us through voluble form and intricate process. They ultimately point to a way of understanding time and space in their embodiment of the ephemeral: the frozen moment, fugitives in time, that which is our very own personal retreat. The environments Napay creates are structures that allow the simultaneities of hours and the sharing of time disappear through the mechanisms of reverie and reflection – what we might call our very own soul and eternal sanctum.

Raffy T. Napay was born in 1986 in Manila, Philippines. He graduated from Eulogio Amang Rodriguez of Science and Technology (EARIST) in 2009 with a Fine Arts degree. Whilst in school, he started gaining recognition for his skill.

 

Napay originally used oil paints, until he developed an adverse allergy to the medium. Whilst recovering, he explored the potential of other materials, and explored working with the available threads and textiles at home. Growing up with a seamstress mother, Napay was exposed to a wide variety of threads, cotton and fabrics and these materials gave him a strong ground into a different world of cre….

 

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