An Inventory of Losses
The thought of looking back, remembering, of counting what is left behind — such is an inventory. the term itself lends to business or official functions, but what if it is considered on personal terms?
Three Filipino-American artists, Julio José Austria, Katrina Bello, and Pinky Ibarra Urmaza empty their spaces and brace for the count with the exhibition “An Inventory of Losses.” Coming from similar yet distinct backgrounds, the three have called New York home, not just for family but also for their art making. They share a common “loss” so to speak – that of their original home in the Philippines.
Austria, who began painting before immigrating to New York, channels the ever-shifting contents of the city: the people, the places, the things in it as he tackles identity and belonging, much like going through the objects in an inventory. For him, loss is felt through the psychological sphere. There was a certain freedom that he enjoyed before, in his own time, with his relationships. His painting process reflects this: adding, erasing – the use of a sponge as a brush has been a metaphor for his own life. Until now there is a sense of that which is “fake” in his daily surroundings, still unable to replace his past truths and realities with the one he has chosen. At the end of the day, he realizes that when you lose something, you gain something.
Born outside the capital of Manila, in the Southern bustle of Davao, Bello has continuously mapped her place and its place as she moves back and forth between natural surroundings. Between zooming in and zooming out of images, her detailed notes in the form of drawn lines trace a line throughout the inventory. Here she focuses on the image of trees — simulacra of a mango tree that she and her siblings used to climb as children. It stood for a long time in their ancestral home, yet it bore no fruit. She translates that microcosm of a country lost into her explorations and interrogations of the world – a fitting metaphor for a tree. This brings to mind Yggdrasil, the Norse tree of the universe wherein the entire cosmos is nestled among its branches and roots.
With her collage series that draws from vintage books and bric-a-brac, Urmaza’s take on the inventory appears to be from a macro view, but distilled into detail. She has seen the full list of items (the covers, spine, words and pages) and from there she draws her elements into arrangements of a distilled essence. Out of loss she creates silhouettes of women, highlighting their misrepresentation through the ages which has contributed to a loss of speech, of voice, of identity. While the pieces evoke a silent sophistication, the undertones range widely from religion to environmental science. The titles of the works are lifted from books which have generously provided not only its covers and pages to the works, but also their essence. She lifts the veil to reveal what has been long shrouded among the forgotten.
An inventory is meant to be a complete list of belongings, to make it of losses is paradoxical at the least. The shared loss that the three have, that of having been uprooted once, or even several times, and then having to reestablish themselves developed a keen sense of accounting for what is absent, for this absence is what makes up the present.Interestingly, Urmaza and Austria have works that reference gardens, as Bello’s entire set of works – trees and foliage – easily tie in with the notion of a place that is easily lost, and at the same time is easy to get lost in.
These losses, of time, of place, in objects, or in memories all form a somewhat abstracted whole — the negative space that exists to balance all we hold dear. An inventory is a list for a certain place and a certain time, and in the future we are wont to revisit the losses that have yet to be found.
Julio José Austria is a New York City-based visual artist originally trained as a painter in the Philippines, where his artistic journey began. Since immigrating to the United States in 2011, Austria’s creative evolution has been deeply influenced by the dynamic, ever-changing urban landscape that surrounds him.
His artistic philosophy challenges the notion of permanence, emphasizing the transformative process of creation over the final product. Drawing inspiration from his daily interactions with New York City – from capturing spontaneous moments with a point-and-shoot camera to collecting memories and keen observations during his subway and bus commutes – Austria weaves these profound experiences into his art.
Austria’s current body of work explores the intersection of form and meaning, blurring boundaries between formalist abstraction and social realism. Through intricate layers of color, texture, and brushstroke, he reflects the complex existence of urban life, offering a glimpse into the layered identities of immigrants like himself. His artworks serve as living narratives, documenting memories, community stories, and personal histories within New York City.
His diverse practice spans painting, mixed media, video, and installation, each medium contributing to his ongoing exploration of identity, belonging, and the evolving nature of artistic expression. Austria embraces the concept of art as perpetual evolution, mirroring his own journey as both an artist and a resident of a city in constant flux.
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Born in Davao City, Katrina Bello is a visual artist whose work is informed by memory, observations, experiences and narratives of land and natural surroundings during her experience of immigrating to the United States. She has participated in solo and group exhibitions in the United States and the Philippines, and has been awarded fellowships and residencies in the United States. This year she is a recipient of a Creative Fellowship from Mid Atlantic Arts, and is a Grant Nominee for the Joan Mitchell Foundation. Currently, she has a solo exhibition at the Dennos Museum in Traverse City in Michigan in the United States, and a solo exhibition at Modeka Art in Metro Manila, Philippines. She attended the College of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, and received a BFA from the Mason Gross School of The Arts at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey in the United States. She received her MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland. She currently lives and works in New Jersey and Nevada in the United States and Metro Manila in the Philippines.
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Pinky Ibarra Urmaza is a mixed media artist drawn to objects with history — vintage books, old toy parts, and other flea market finds. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from De La Salle University, Manila and attended workshops at the MOWELFUND Film Institute.
In 2000, she moved to New York where she completed the full-time program at the International Center of Photography. From 2005 – 2014, she took mixed media courses at the Art Students League where she began experimenting with altered books. Her collages are inspired by childhood memories of ancestral houses, salvaged family heirlooms and remnants of strangers’ lives found in dusty photographs and stained pages. Through manipulating these materials by burning, tearing, painting, and mark-making, her work celebrates the discarded in the hope of breathing new life into these forgotten objects.
An Inventory of Losses
The thought of looking back, remembering, of counting what is left behind — such is an inventory. the term itself lends to business or official functions, but what if it is considered on personal terms?
Three Filipino-American artists, Julio José Austria, Katrina Bello, and Pinky Ibarra Urmaza empty their spaces and brace for the count with the exhibition “An Inventory of Losses.” Coming from similar yet distinct backgrounds, the three have called New York home, not just for family but also for their art making. They share a common “loss” so to speak – that of their original home in the Philippines.
Austria, who began painting before immigrating to New York, channels the ever-shifting contents of the city: the people, the places, the things in it as he tackles identity and belonging, much like going through the objects in an inventory. For him, loss is felt through the psychological sphere. There was a certain freedom that he enjoyed before, in his own time, with his relationships. His painting process reflects this: adding, erasing – the use of a sponge as a brush has been a metaphor for his own life. Until now there is a sense of that which is “fake” in his daily surroundings, still unable to replace his past truths and realities with the one he has chosen. At the end of the day, he realizes that when you lose something, you gain something.
Born outside the capital of Manila, in the Southern bustle of Davao, Bello has continuously mapped her place and its place as she moves back and forth between natural surroundings. Between zooming in and zooming out of images, her detailed notes in the form of drawn lines trace a line throughout the inventory. Here she focuses on the image of trees — simulacra of a mango tree that she and her siblings used to climb as children. It stood for a long time in their ancestral home, yet it bore no fruit. She translates that microcosm of a country lost into her explorations and interrogations of the world – a fitting metaphor for a tree. This brings to mind Yggdrasil, the Norse tree of the universe wherein the entire cosmos is nestled among its branches and roots.
With her collage series that draws from vintage books and bric-a-brac, Urmaza’s take on the inventory appears to be from a macro view, but distilled into detail. She has seen the full list of items (the covers, spine, words and pages) and from there she draws her elements into arrangements of a distilled essence. Out of loss she creates silhouettes of women, highlighting their misrepresentation through the ages which has contributed to a loss of speech, of voice, of identity. While the pieces evoke a silent sophistication, the undertones range widely from religion to environmental science. The titles of the works are lifted from books which have generously provided not only its covers and pages to the works, but also their essence. She lifts the veil to reveal what has been long shrouded among the forgotten.
An inventory is meant to be a complete list of belongings, to make it of losses is paradoxical at the least. The shared loss that the three have, that of having been uprooted once, or even several times, and then having to reestablish themselves developed a keen sense of accounting for what is absent, for this absence is what makes up the present.Interestingly, Urmaza and Austria have works that reference gardens, as Bello’s entire set of works – trees and foliage – easily tie in with the notion of a place that is easily lost, and at the same time is easy to get lost in.
These losses, of time, of place, in objects, or in memories all form a somewhat abstracted whole — the negative space that exists to balance all we hold dear. An inventory is a list for a certain place and a certain time, and in the future we are wont to revisit the losses that have yet to be found.
Julio José Austria is a New York City-based visual artist originally trained as a painter in the Philippines, where his artistic journey began. Since immigrating to the United States in 2011, Austria’s creative evolution has been deeply influenced by the dynamic, ever-changing urban landscape that surrounds him.
His artistic philosophy challenges the notion of permanence, emphasizing the transformative process of creation over the final product. Drawing inspiration from his daily interactions with New York City – from capturing spontaneous moments with a point-and-shoot camera to collecting memories and keen observations during his subway and bus commutes – Austria weaves these profound experiences into his art.
Austria’s current body of work explores the intersection of form and meaning, blurring boundaries between formalist abstraction and social realism. Through intricate layers of color, texture, and brushstroke, he reflects the complex existence of urban life, offering a glimpse into the layered identities of immigrants like himself. His artworks serve as living narratives, documenting memories, community stories, and personal histories within New York City.
His diverse practice spans painting, mixed media, video, and installation, each medium contributing to his ongoing exploration of identity, belonging, and the evolving nature of artistic expression. Austria embraces the concept of art as perpetual evolution, mirroring his own journey as both an artist and a resident of a city in constant flux.
—
Born in Davao City, Katrina Bello is a visual artist whose work is informed by memory, observations, experiences and narratives of land and natural surroundings during her experience of immigrating to the United States. She has participated in solo and group exhibitions in the United States and the Philippines, and has been awarded fellowships and residencies in the United States. This year she is a recipient of a Creative Fellowship from Mid Atlantic Arts, and is a Grant Nominee for the Joan Mitchell Foundation. Currently, she has a solo exhibition at the Dennos Museum in Traverse City in Michigan in the United States, and a solo exhibition at Modeka Art in Metro Manila, Philippines. She attended the College of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, and received a BFA from the Mason Gross School of The Arts at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey in the United States. She received her MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland. She currently lives and works in New Jersey and Nevada in the United States and Metro Manila in the Philippines.
—
Pinky Ibarra Urmaza is a mixed media artist drawn to objects with history — vintage books, old toy parts, and other flea market finds. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from De La Salle University, Manila and attended workshops at the MOWELFUND Film Institute.
In 2000, she moved to New York where she completed the full-time program at the International Center of Photography. From 2005 – 2014, she took mixed media courses at the Art Students League where she began experimenting with altered books. Her collages are inspired by childhood memories of ancestral houses, salvaged family heirlooms and remnants of strangers’ lives found in dusty photographs and stained pages. Through manipulating these materials by burning, tearing, painting, and mark-making, her work celebrates the discarded in the hope of breathing new life into these forgotten objects.
