Our series “A Day in the Life” is a documentation of creative process straight from the artists themselves. Submit your feature request through thriveartorg@gmail.com.
Khyle Columna is an artist who lives, studies and works in Oton, Iloilo province. His art revolves around his personal narratives and how they affect his environments especially his friends and those close to him. Columna taps from a well of childhood memories to bring the visualizations of his traumas, dreams and experiences to the canvas. This process is often painstaking; he notes that he sometimes applies six layers of paint to achieve the desired effect. Despite the deeply personal stories behind his paintings, Columna is able to situate his art within the collective memory of his generation of Ilonggo artists.
This artwork is actually based on a dream I had. The initial study for this painting are the elements from my dreams. These are the objects that I remembered afterward. I had a conversation with my friends at school about our dreams and they shared that their dreams have similar recurring events. One friend said he is always being chased by a dog in his dreams. This led me to realize that the entity that keeps visiting me in my dreams might be a representation of my old self. This was two months before our exhibition entitled “Katawhan” that was held at the Iloilo Museum of Contemporary Art. I thought the exhibition’s theme can be somewhat connected to this recurring dream.
I interpreted this dream as the longing to remain a child or revisit the past and perhaps correct the events in the hope to improve the present. But that of course is impossible. No matter how much we want to prolong our childhood, at some point they become memories that is only accessible for us to look back to. We just could not relive the past.
I called this painting “Companion” to honor myself who I consider my most reliable companion. I also added some elements that remind me of my childhood including paper boats which I remember playing with in Pototan where I grew up, and the landscape in the background which are all the sceneries I saw. I enjoyed working on this painting because I felt I was being true to myself when I painted it. I gave myself freedom to create this painting without thinking about the audience. This is also where I started experimenting with this color palette – dominant blue against neutral tones.
On weekdays, I usually wake up at 6:30 in the morning to rush to my 7:00 AM class. I only get to paint after school. I make sure to use this time to work on commission works, paintings for upcoming exhibitions, and studies for future artworks.
I rely heavily on studies for my paintings. I have a collection of them and when I need to join an exhibition I go back to my sketches and develop them as initial ideas. I work on the studies until they’re ready for me to convert them into photographs. Aside from the sketches, I also create reference photographs because I want to realistically capture the anatomy of my subjects.
“Isolation” became somewhat of an outlet for my frustrations, towards my relationship with my friends. I went through a phase where I isolated myself from them. The cloth covering the subject’s head, the absence of color seen through the windows, the room where the subject is situated are all symbols of being unable to see the world, and of the world being unable to see him.
In this painting, you can also see the subject’s hand covering his face as a sign of disbelief, fear of ridicule and frustration that the relationship has come to separation and is likely be stuck in this end. He is tied to the situation as shown by the barbed wire coiling around his feet.
I also consider this painting a marker of a memory. I liked working on this artwork because I found acceptance that of this chapter, not just of my life but also of my friends’ lives as well.
About the Artist
Khyle Columna (b. 2007) began participating in exhibitions at the age of 15 through a mentoring and residency program at the Puluy-an Art Gallery, under the guidance of Melvin Guirhem and John Paul Castillo. Prior to the residency, Columna had participated in school-based competitions.
Columna has exhibited artworks in Iloilo, Manila, Batangas, and Bacolod. His artworks have been featured in “Alpas,” “Linyada,” “Istrokada-Stroke,” and “Pasugod” at the Puluy-an Art Gallery; “Sulong” at Block 17 Art Space; “Purya-Usog” at Kaida Contemporary; “Bayluhanay 2024” at Eskinita Art Farm; and “Katawhan” at the Iloilo Museum of Contemporary Art.
