Solo Exhibition

The Drawing Room, Makati City

August 16-September 13, 2025

There are places we are attached to, places of encounter and connection where we experience an intimacy with land and water. The experience makes its way into the vault of the mind- the  infinite interior where thought and emotion are part of the intangible in ourselves, the backdrop of our consciousness, and the fulcrum from which we revolve and operate. 

How do we remember the places we have walked through? Which of the pieces of the whole picture remain? We transform reality into images remembered in parts, distilled into a few specific distinct resonant images that transcend time.  In a heartbeat, we can be transported back to a time and place where the sound of a rushing river or the bright yellow green of a wide open field returns. I am interested in the emotionality of the landscape, in our profound personal and collective experience in relationship to the earth. Perhaps we have our most poignant moments in nature because it is in these sacred places that we come close to our true identity as part of creation. There is something deeply instilled in us- a yearning to be in places of wonder and beauty. This is perhaps because we sense we are perfectly designed creatures among creatures, living under a clear blue sky and walking among miraculous trees. We deeply know that the intelligence of the world is far beyond what we can ever fathom, that scenes of mountains, rivers and seas bring us an awareness of a higher being, of God.

In remembering, there is always longing, a bittersweet feeling for things that were, that no longer are. Solastalgia, the feeling of distress at the state of the earth, is also brought about by memory-especially those of the older generation who remembers a time when rivers and streams still ran clear. Solastalgia asks the question, what is now lost or missing? The paintings are an ode to longing for beauty in the world- the trees we climbed, the rivers waded in, rivers once majestic and flowing. We are called not only to remember, but to care for and return to nature again and again for sustenance, joy and renewal. 

Aina Valencia

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS
by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.