The power of being: A singular vision with more than a hundred faces by Raena Abella

In the chic, shadowed corridors of Karrivin Plaza, where art and lifestyle converge with a certain effortless grace, Artinformal recently played host to an evening of profound introspection.

Last 26 February, the gallery unveiled Raena Abella’s latest masterwork, “To seek. To surrender. To Stay.” It is a singular, immersive installation that felt less like an exhibition and more like a hallowed communion with the Philippine creative spirit.

Abella created a soul-map curated by notable and esteemed artist Nilo Ilarde. The entire gallery was surrendered to one monumental work, an expansive tapestry of over 100 portraits capturing the faces of contemporary Filipino artists. It was a staggering visual roll call, a “who’s who” of the local art world stripped of pretense and captured in moments of raw, quiet vulnerability.

Each portrait served as a thread in a larger narrative of the artistic struggle and triumph. To walk the perimeter of the room was to feel the weight of a hundred gazes — some searching, some resigned, all resolutely present.

The atmosphere was one of quiet reverence, as the subjects themselves mingled among their likenesses. In true Abella fashion, the execution was impeccable — an elegant balance of shadows and light that reminded us why Artinformal remains the epicenter of intellectual contemporary art. It was a night that proved that in the fleeting world of aesthetics, there is nothing more powerful than the courage to simply be.