Marigold Santos | of armour bespoke, of fabric, of skin, of within / binubuo ng pasadyang proteksyon, ng tela, ng balat, at ng kalooban

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Marigold Santos, “terno armour 2 (flower abstractions and blooms),” 2024

ash with wax finish, brass, cotton, embroidery thread, metal pins, 24.75 x 16.5 x 15 in. (courtesy of the Gallery)

Across cultures and in artistic practices, needle work – that is, any kind of handiwork completed with a needle and thread – has both quotidian utilitarianism and can produce artefacts that ceremonially mark life’s milestones. By extension, tattooing, a practice that also involves the needle – is also a type of needle work that punctures skin with ink and marks the bearer with designs that hold personal significance. Tattooing elevates the skin beyond its biological function, turns it into a surface of ornamentation, and imbues the body with talismanic power. It is a transformation from physical to spiritual protection. A malunggay sprig, hand fans woven from palm leaves, stylized flora, a harlequin asuang, a cross-section of a lanka are whispers of a rich heritage from which many children of the diaspora are estranged. With a needle, the artist sutures these disjunctures and reconnects the bearer of these markings with our collective histories.

In this new exhibition, Manila-born, Calgary-based Marigold Santos re-interprets Philippine traditional material practices of needle work, both textile embroidery and tattooing, into magical moments of transcendent relationality.

Santos takes on a new direction in her practice with this series of large scale studio photographic portraits of people she has tattooed. For the artist, tattooing is a trauma-informed and relational practice in which she prioritises IBPOC bodies, particularly Filipino/a/x. The individuals who are photographed have been marked by Santos; just as she has supported their bodily and aesthetic choices, these people support Santos’ artistic career. Adopting the same artful intimacy that she takes on when tattooing her subjects, Santos engages with the sitters of each portrait, each a member of the Filipinx diasporic community. These photographs not only capture relations of mutual support, but also networks of reciprocated trust.

Reinventing these traditional practices in the diaspora not only physically marks people but marks them as time and space travellers who have traversed oceans, violent colonial encounters, racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia to stand in that very moment.

Shrouded in black, Santos’ portraits are enveloped in darkness, but a levity shines through the eyes of her sitters. Brown skin, white grins, and the glints of eyes shine through the darkness. In a world that denies full humanity to Filipinx diasporic subjects who are often seen as labourers and expendable, these portraits celebrate the embodied resistances and joys that have been cultivated by communities that are seeking to reclaim ancestral power and move it into abundant futures. They exude comfort in their own skin – skin that they have willfully chosen to adorn with motifs oftentimes created collaboratively with Santos.

For Filipinos/as/x amid white supremacy, feeling good “in ones’ skin” cannot be taken for granted. Intergenerational trauma, colonial mentality, and toxicity within the Filipinx community amplify lies that proximity to whiteness is desirable as it moves closer to privilege and power. To be joyful in one’s body is radical. To be joyful in one’s brown body is revolutionary.

Santos’ needle work is in fact, needed work for these children of the diaspora – mga anak ng diaspora: Bianca. Darren. Dianne. Gina. Jackie. Jean. Joey. Jules. Mac. Michelle. Ray. Robi. Ruth. Tiffany. Tomi.  Aware of these colonial harms, Santos mobilises her art to heal. And like a babaylan, the artist conjures the wisdom and skills of the ancestors, bringing them into conversation with contemporary artistic vocabularies and shows us art as salve for battered, brown bodies.

While tattooing is a collaborative process that requires mutual trust, the needle work on textile is solitary, contemplative work that the artist engages in as her child sleeps.

A pastoral scene akin to a Nestor Garcia Leynes painting can be imagined from a quick glance of this exhibition: atop a woven banig lay mother and child at the end of a bustling day tending to matters of everyday life in the province. As child rests her weary eyes, mother gathers her piña fabric, and begins to push her needle in and out, stamping embroidered renditions of local flora and fauna: sampaguita blooms, sampalok leaves, malunggay, yambo, banana hearts, and butterflies and snakes, creatures of folk tales shared before consciousness wanders into sleep. The terno sleeves that bear these symbols become more than just an eventual adornment onto a gown, and the humble banig more than just a separation between body and soil, but rather, they become a talismanic embodiment of rest and healing, protection against colonial traumas. However, unlike a fixed painting, Santos takes this traditional idealism of life in the motherland and remakes it into kinetic objects reflective of diasporic realities. Whereas venerated artists as Leynes and Amorsolo preserve a picturesque depiction of life in the Philippines, Santos utilizes the materials around her–cotton in place of piña, paper in place of rattan–to propel herself from this static, and to protect herself against the trials faced in the diaspora–racism, exploitation, displacement, and white supremacy.

Through Santos’ embroidered terno sleeves and banig, a space is created to imagine, to heal. Stitched onto natural cotton fabric, procured specifically due to its resemblance to piña, the artist’s stark abstract floral designs are akin to her tattoo flash sheets, further exploring the idea of needle work as needed work, albeit in a different medium. Another of the artist’s principle forays with new materials, Santos explores the practice of self-taught embroidery as a means of meditation. Historically, considered as “women’s work” and has now become a form of rest for Santos, embroidery captures the dichotomy between what was and what could be. This balance also finds itself in the woven banig, no-frills in its function yet upstanding as an art piece involving hand painted strokes on the individual strips of paper to create fluid movement in an otherwise rigid object.

To imagine is to visualize a narrative where the brown body is not battered and bruised, where rest and healing await a day of work. To revere the banig is to honour all the calloused pairs of hands that literally connect the permeating threads of Philippine culture across the diaspora. To boldly depict local plants on garments that stem from the introduction of modesty and gendered clothing brought forth by Spanish colonial rule is to reveal the tenacity of native species despite foreign intervention.

In the quietude of her studio, as needle and thread weave through fabric, Santos conjures a tapestry of resilience and reclamation. Her work transcends mere adornment; it becomes a sacred act of healing and a testament to the enduring spirit of the Filipinx diaspora. Each stitch and each inked design on skin tells a story of survival, of journeying through tumultuous histories and reclaiming spaces denied. Santos’ artful interplay between traditional needlework and modern tattooing honours ancestral wisdom while forging new paths for identity and belonging. Through her needle work, she emboldens us to imagine a world where brown bodies are not only seen but celebrated, where past traumas give way to a future of rest, healing, and unyielding joy. Together, these works become expressions of armour bespoke, of fabric, of skin, of within.