The Shoebox
2019
Tin Metal, Gesso, Paint, Graphite
5” x 7”
The Shoebox is a painting on tin that carries a haunting memory from my childhood. I was an altar boy in an old town in the Philippines and though I had already witnessed many funerals, this one never left me. A poor family entered the church carrying nothing but a shoebox to the altar table. When it was opened, I saw inside the tiny body of a baby. That moment—of unbearable sorrow—seared itself into me.
I chose to render this memory in the style of Recuerdos de Patay, the Filipino tradition of post-mortem portraiture practiced from the late 19th to early 20th century. For generations, these portraits served as keepsakes of the departed, ways to hold on to memory when time or poverty threatened to take everything else away.
For me, The Shoebox is both a remembrance and a reckoning. It reflects not only the fragility of life but also the stark inequalities that remain in our world, where some families must lay their children to rest without even the dignity of a coffin.