To the Sky and to the Sea
There comes a time in everyone’s life that we remember our childhood wishes, our bucket lists, our dreams. Some may have come true — imagine feeling lost and not knowing what to do in life, until you find that one job that doesn’t feel like working at all — and then you accidentally find your elementary yearbook where you said that’s what you wanted to do when you grow up. Some of them maybe we tried, but it didn’t work out. But it’s never too late.
Hersley Casero celebrates his 40th year with an exhibition unlike any other that he has done. Drawing on his experiences and life learnings in the past four decades, he revisits his childhood promises with a set of paintings and sculptures that bear a message for anyone who sees.
Packed with whimsy and serene faces, each canvas is a point in a journey that is both autobiographical and a yearning for others. Two figures in a tree: a photographer and a pianist, are perched on branches arched together as if a heart. Surrounded by yellow clouds and their furry friends, you can almost hear “A Song the Wind Remembers.” A man, a boy, and a dog shelter under a makeshift umbrella, as birds flutter around them. In their hands — or snout in the dog’s case — is a cherished memory held tightly. Each one of them is “The Keeper of Small Wonders. Behind a gigantic leaf, an eye brimming with wonder peeks through a serendipitous hole. Around him, the grass stirs with light and magic. He is “The Watcher.” On a rock gazing out to either sea or sky, a boy is kept company by his trusted sidekick. Against a background of the infinite cosmos, this boy is “The Island’s Child.” Perhaps up in that same vast sky, a simple boat carries someone with a precious task. As his companion’s attention is caught by a little bird flittering by, He hoists his net up in position as “The Dream Fisher.” The diamond-oriented canvas holds an immensity that as humans we haven’t quite figured out how to wield. Wearing a rainbow shirt and with starry eyes, a boy gazes into the endless sky with more than “100,000,000,000” stars, as a comet blazes across. He silently casts a wish. We revisit our canine friend, with his red cape — like a silent hero — sitting upon an island shaped like a memento mori. He salutes at the place “Where the Fallen Stars Rest.” At the end of it all, the friends we’ve encountered along the way march together, seeking new places, new faces, and new experiences, calling out to “All the Friends in the Galaxy.”
Intentionally, most of the canvasses follow a specific measurement involving forty inches. A leaf that has grown large enough to be an umbrella figures prominently in many of the paintings as well. Rather large is something one would also consider the biggest painting to be — 84 x 84 inches precisely — referencing Casero’s birth year. This is a gesture of protection that he imparts to everyone.
Being a lifelong artist, he revisits a childhood dream of being able to make sculptures of the characters that have been with him in his paintings. He achieves this with three-dimensional presentations of his canvas works in this exhibit, and not just that. As an ode to a lifetime of companionship, there are forty individual dogs — each with its own unique look and personality, but all of them with the same wish to be by your side forever.
For the casual onlooker, the images and motifs in the works are already a myriad of wonders. However hidden in the background of each painting is a connection to the universe. Clusters of stars that have guided our ancestors thousands of years ago appear as they have seen: Canis Minor and Canis Major — the little and the big dog, the eagle, the pigeon, the little horse and the little fish. They circle the skies alongside Orion, and many others for you to discover.
There is a saying that “life begins at forty.” Attributed to a book published in the 1930s, it was specifically written for a time when new innovations wee becoming widespread, and people having longer lifespans. The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung also remarked that our lives until our thirties is only “research” — that as we reach our fortieth year, we begin to transform our fears, dreams, and aspirations into experiences we can live with and live through. Despite being known for a wide and diverse body of work, Casero chose to focus this exhibit on his life so far, painting night and day, sculpting left and right. As a new father, there’s more than one beginning that he wishes to express.
There comes a time in our lives when things come full circle. And then…
– Francisco Jin Sung Lee, Feb 2025
Hersley-Ven Casero is a multidisciplinary visual artist and street and documentary photographer based in Dumaguete City, Philippines. He received his BSC in Marketing and an Artist of the Year Award from Foundation University, and in 2018, the Negros Oriental Young Heroes Award in the field of Visual Arts. Being born and raised in Dumaguete, the city has shaped Casero’s perspective as a visual artist and is the stage for many of his paintings and photographs. Over the years of his lifelong journey in the field of visual arts, Casero has explored and experimented with a wide spectrum of materials, subjects and concepts. Casero’s art and photography perpetually inform and inspire each other, encouraging him to stay curious, to wonder daily at the whimsicality of the world around him, and to find, capture and record the magic that exists in the mundane of everyday life within his hometown of Dumaguete and beyond.
To the Sky and to the Sea
There comes a time in everyone’s life that we remember our childhood wishes, our bucket lists, our dreams. Some may have come true — imagine feeling lost and not knowing what to do in life, until you find that one job that doesn’t feel like working at all — and then you accidentally find your elementary yearbook where you said that’s what you wanted to do when you grow up. Some of them maybe we tried, but it didn’t work out. But it’s never too late.
Hersley Casero celebrates his 40th year with an exhibition unlike any other that he has done. Drawing on his experiences and life learnings in the past four decades, he revisits his childhood promises with a set of paintings and sculptures that bear a message for anyone who sees.
Packed with whimsy and serene faces, each canvas is a point in a journey that is both autobiographical and a yearning for others. Two figures in a tree: a photographer and a pianist, are perched on branches arched together as if a heart. Surrounded by yellow clouds and their furry friends, you can almost hear “A Song the Wind Remembers.” A man, a boy, and a dog shelter under a makeshift umbrella, as birds flutter around them. In their hands — or snout in the dog’s case — is a cherished memory held tightly. Each one of them is “The Keeper of Small Wonders. Behind a gigantic leaf, an eye brimming with wonder peeks through a serendipitous hole. Around him, the grass stirs with light and magic. He is “The Watcher.” On a rock gazing out to either sea or sky, a boy is kept company by his trusted sidekick. Against a background of the infinite cosmos, this boy is “The Island’s Child.” Perhaps up in that same vast sky, a simple boat carries someone with a precious task. As his companion’s attention is caught by a little bird flittering by, He hoists his net up in position as “The Dream Fisher.” The diamond-oriented canvas holds an immensity that as humans we haven’t quite figured out how to wield. Wearing a rainbow shirt and with starry eyes, a boy gazes into the endless sky with more than “100,000,000,000” stars, as a comet blazes across. He silently casts a wish. We revisit our canine friend, with his red cape — like a silent hero — sitting upon an island shaped like a memento mori. He salutes at the place “Where the Fallen Stars Rest.” At the end of it all, the friends we’ve encountered along the way march together, seeking new places, new faces, and new experiences, calling out to “All the Friends in the Galaxy.”
Intentionally, most of the canvasses follow a specific measurement involving forty inches. A leaf that has grown large enough to be an umbrella figures prominently in many of the paintings as well. Rather large is something one would also consider the biggest painting to be — 84 x 84 inches precisely — referencing Casero’s birth year. This is a gesture of protection that he imparts to everyone.
Being a lifelong artist, he revisits a childhood dream of being able to make sculptures of the characters that have been with him in his paintings. He achieves this with three-dimensional presentations of his canvas works in this exhibit, and not just that. As an ode to a lifetime of companionship, there are forty individual dogs — each with its own unique look and personality, but all of them with the same wish to be by your side forever.
For the casual onlooker, the images and motifs in the works are already a myriad of wonders. However hidden in the background of each painting is a connection to the universe. Clusters of stars that have guided our ancestors thousands of years ago appear as they have seen: Canis Minor and Canis Major — the little and the big dog, the eagle, the pigeon, the little horse and the little fish. They circle the skies alongside Orion, and many others for you to discover.
There is a saying that “life begins at forty.” Attributed to a book published in the 1930s, it was specifically written for a time when new innovations wee becoming widespread, and people having longer lifespans. The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung also remarked that our lives until our thirties is only “research” — that as we reach our fortieth year, we begin to transform our fears, dreams, and aspirations into experiences we can live with and live through. Despite being known for a wide and diverse body of work, Casero chose to focus this exhibit on his life so far, painting night and day, sculpting left and right. As a new father, there’s more than one beginning that he wishes to express.
There comes a time in our lives when things come full circle. And then…
– Francisco Jin Sung Lee, Feb 2025
Hersley-Ven Casero is a multidisciplinary visual artist and street and documentary photographer based in Dumaguete City, Philippines. He received his BSC in Marketing and an Artist of the Year Award from Foundation University, and in 2018, the Negros Oriental Young Heroes Award in the field of Visual Arts. Being born and raised in Dumaguete, the city has shaped Casero’s perspective as a visual artist and is the stage for many of his paintings and photographs. Over the years of his lifelong journey in the field of visual arts, Casero has explored and experimented with a wide spectrum of materials, subjects and concepts. Casero’s art and photography perpetually inform and inspire each other, encouraging him to stay curious, to wonder daily at the whimsicality of the world around him, and to find, capture and record the magic that exists in the mundane of everyday life within his hometown of Dumaguete and beyond.
