Marigold Santos | Epiphytic Elucidations

17 January – 28 February 2026

Before the artist had her child, I shared with her that mothering was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life. Mothering is intense, and through this labour, one is transformed. A mother is forged in ways that are not only physical, but deeply spiritual and creative. Mas mamalakas tayo dahil mag-ina tayo. We are stronger because we are mothers.

This sense of labour and transformation pulsates throughout Marigold Santos’ new work. In her art, I find echoes of my own journey—the negotiation of identity, the sacred weight of heritage, and the fierce creativity that emerges from these thresholds. Her solo exhibition at Patel Brown, Epiphytic Elucidations draws on her lived experience and ancestral channeling. As the mother, diasporic subject, and artist, Santos highlights the ways in which ancestral labour continues to sustain the present through relations entwined in ecology and kinship.

–Chloe Panaligan & Marissa Largo