EXHIBIT NOTES

A footprint on a surface does not usually last very long, as its wet impression either dries in plain air or gets cleaned up of grime in a matter of time. On a beach, it appears, holds its shape for a while, then disappears with the tide. On a cut out piece of paper which is then matched with its grass-textured pair, it becomes a tangible work of art. In Lyndon Maglalang’s Footprints, this familiar mark becomes a point of departure for considering presence, absence, memory, landscape, and the traces we leave behind.

Though inspired by Mary Stevenson’s well-known 1936 Christian poem and its later musical interpretations like the popular 1980 version sung by Edgel Groves, Maglalang does not simply illustrate the text like so many others before him. Instead, he takes the footprint into painting, drawing, collage, and object-making, allowing it to shift between recognizable forms, landscapes, fragments, and empty space, moving quietly between presence and erasure, permanence and impermanence.

In Boundless, a wide stretch of sand meets an intensely blue sky. Made with acrylic and dried paint on canvas, the work is deliberately spare: earth, horizon, sky, and a lone figure standing on the beach. Against the expansive landscape, the figure is almost swallowed by the space around him, suggesting not isolation but being held within something much larger than oneself.

Stones of Remembrance, a long horizontal charcoal drawing, brings together fragments of stones, figures, architectural forms, and open spaces. Its powdery blacks and softer applications allow forms to emerge and recede like misty memories. The artist uses this unusual format to encourage audiences’ eyes to move slowly across the work, turning looking itself into a kind of passage.

That sense of movement continues in The Valley of Whispered Promises I, where a snowy landscape is split by a well-used path. Evergreens gather near the figure while petrified branches form the background, with other branch networks leaving almost transparent markings at the foreground. Elements recur at different scales, creating a subtle shift between nearness and distance. In its second iteration, the viewpoint moves farther from the path with a slightly elevated platform, offering another way of seeing the terrain. Reds and rusts replace the coolness of snow, bringing the richness of the soil into the horizon, steep cliffs, and canyon plateaus.

Stones and rocks recur throughout the exhibition. They carry weight and suggest permanence, yet they can also become obstacles or, at times, places of rest in this weary, endless journey. The paths are sometimes clear, sometimes uncertain, and sometimes disappear altogether. But faith always remains, not as a fixed answer, but as a way of continuing when the ground ahead is unclear. Maglalang also brings our attention towards rarely used mediums in artmaking: hardbound book covers with dried leaves on acid-free paper; thread on hardbound book covers; and even cutout paper on wood. These materials lend the works different textures and registers, from the powdery immediacy of charcoal to the accumulated surfaces of dried pigment and the fragility of paper, leaves, thread, and cut forms.

The story behind Footprints has been told many times. Faith, bearing burdens, unwavering presence–these are concepts Maglalang does not need to retell. Instead, he masterfully allows these notions to wander into other visual territories: the vastness of a landscape, the uncertainty of a path, the weight of a stone, and the persistence of a mark, all using his humble Believer’s hands. Perhaps in seeing Footprints, we realize that what matters is not only where we are going, but what the journey leaves behind, and what may remain after we have passed through.

Kaye O’Yek

Whichever Way It Goes continues this play with direction, turning toward wide greens and the hopeful, slightly wry optimism of a golf novice. In Mull, Maglalang loosens the composition further. Collage, acrylic, and dried mixes of paint on board create a lively surface of scattered patterns and blooms, with a round top picket fence dissecting ground and a figure whose clothes subtly mimic the florals around it.

Given Daily, made with watercolor on wood, introduces another kind of delicacy in its representation of figure and water. Pruning, combining charcoal, cyanotype, and acid-free paper on board, suggests the difficult act of cutting back and bringing something into shape. In Mirror (Void), the reflection becomes an echo rather than an exact duplicate. The visible texture of the canvas further complicates the tension between appearance and absence.