Mind Set Art Center is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition in Taiwan by Filipino visual artist Lee Paje at its project room, titled Paradise Lost and Found. Marking MSAC’s inaugural collaboration with Paje, this exhibition delves into the intricate complexities of gender and identity within the framework of historical power dynamics. Through her deeply insightful perspective, Paje unpacks pressing contemporary cultural issues.
In this exhibition, Paradise Lost and Found, Lee Paje creates a multi-layered contemporary narrative through oil paintings on copper and paper installations, re-examining the interconnections between gender fluidity and Philippine colonial history. By weaving together history and mythology, she reveals overlooked cultural and gender narratives. Her works explore how colonialism reinforced heteronormative structures, yet through a complex visual language, she transcends binary interpretations to offer a richer, more nuanced perspective.
The exhibition title draws from a pre-hispanic myth recorded in The Soul Book, where a great flood wipes out society. In this story, “paradise” symbolizes harmony between humanity and nature, a realm of abundance where beings freely transform (Demetrio et al., 1991). In Paje’s works, water emerges as a recurring motif and metaphor, representing fluidity and rebirth. This reaches a powerful visual expression in Measured, Cut, but Never Divided. In The Door to Paradise Blew Open, a priest in ceremonial robes stands solemnly within a confessional, his gaze falling on shadowy figures by the shore. These spectral forms, shaped from ocean waves, hint at a fluid identity and spirituality, recalling the babaylan—pre-colonial shamans whose roles transcended rigid gender binaries. Their textured, garment-like surfaces suggest the outward performance of their societal roles, reflecting how faith, colonialism, and indigenous traditions intersect to shape understandings of gender.
Copper, with its luminous sheen beneath layers of oil paint, becomes a poetic surface on which Paje explores the complexities of history—where oppression and empowerment coexist. In addition to these copper paintings, she presents new paper works in the form of accordion-folded books, which unfold like historical chronicles. Page by page, Paje constructs a narrative that challenges conventional perspectives, inviting viewers to re-examine history and gender identity as evolving, fluid phenomena.
