a damiana proverb
Alysha Aran and Czarina Mendoza
“a terse didactic statement, handed down through generations, the wisdom of many and the wit of one. It ordinarily suggests a course of action or passes judgment on a situation.”
The exhibition includes a collaborative sound installation and selected works curated by the artists that serve as meditations on the fragmented exchange between self, culture, and tradition. Each work is organized by the entry format of proverbs based on Damiana Eugenio’s Philippine Folk Literature, The Proverbs. As a reflection and visual expansion of the text, the artists present their shared inquiry within confined structures of “representation” and the tension between belonging and foreignness.
Curated by Adrien Crossman, this exhibition is the third in a series of three that pair an established artist with an emerging Hamilton based artist in which artistic affinities are shared. The artists work together in collaboration toward the installation of a month long two person exhibition at Orchid Contemporary.
Documentation by Eli Nolet
Alysha Aran is a multi-disciplinary artist currently residing on the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe peoples (Hamilton, ON). In her work, she is interested in memories of her ancestors and traditions taught by family that help navigate personhood amongst histories of assimilation. Through oil painting and reworking found material, she explores how these present as cultural ties and tears. Aran’s work also considers the history between the East and the West, including migration waves shared between communities of the Filipino diaspora. Aran is currently working on her Concurrent Certificate of Curatorial Studies alongside her BFA in Studio Art at McMaster University (d. 2026), with a minor in Art History.
Czarina Mendoza (b. Ponoka, AB) is an artist currently based in Windsor, ON. She is interested in the construction of identity, erasure and the mediation of transnational ties. As a collector she documents through field recordings, objects, black and white film photography, and ephemera building a personal archive as both reference and material for her work. The results are hybridized artifacts that seem fractured, yet negotiate both a recalled and imagined time and space. She is studying her Masters in Information Sciences at Wayne State University, specializing in archiving and obsolescent formats. Her experimental sound project called Soft Reduction broadcasts online and on-air crossborder in Windsor-Detroit (CJAM 99.1). She is ⅓ of the synthpop band Olinda.
Czarina Mendoza (b. Ponoka, AB) is an artist currently based in Windsor, ON. She is interested in the construction of identity, erasure and the mediation of transnational ties. As a collector she documents through field recordings, objects, black and white film photography, and ephemera building a personal archive as both reference and material for her work. The results are hybridized artifacts that seem fractured, yet negotiate both a recalled and imagined time and space. She is studying her Masters in Information Sciences at Wayne State University, specializing in archiving and obsolescent formats. Her experimental sound project called Soft Reduction broadcasts online and on-air crossborder in Windsor-Detroit (CJAM 99.1). She is ⅓ of the synthpop band Olinda.