The first exhibition of the year in Campbelltown arts centre will be by Marikit Santiago, a Western Sydney based artist who won the 2024 La Prairie art award.
This major solo exhibition is titled Marikit Santiago: Proclaim Your Death! and opens on January 4.
The exhibition features new installations, commissioned paintings, and an interactive gallery that challenges the Western art-historical canon, focusing on religious ideologies surrounding life, death, and transformation.
Renowned for her refined oil paintings, Santiago will venture into new territory by exhibiting large-scale cardboard installations and watercolours for the first time in a gallery setting.
Inspired by artworks from the Art Gallery of NSW collection, Santiago has appropriated works to create new narratives that interrogate historical biases and offer alternate perspectives reflecting on culture, history, and migration.
The artist’s process also subverts traditional fine art materials, challenging the notion of permanence and assumed value of fine art.
This is further shown through a reduced-scale cardboard church, created in collaboration with Santiago’s architect father, Noy.
This work references the Spanish Baroque-style churches built in the Philippines during colonial times, blending indigenous and European design influences.
Santiago weaves together personal faith, cultural traditions and the diasporic experience of her Filipino Australian family, creating a space for reflection on displacement, survival, and the evolving nature of identity.
A central theme of the exhibition is the artist’s use of her family as both subjects and collaborators.
Santiago’s new series of paintings depicts her family members as Filipino deities in place of traditional religious figures, positioning them as symbols of resilience and mythological power.
The artist’s children, Maella, Santi and Sarita have curated the Alter Altar exhibition and contributed to its vision, reaffirming the artist’s commitment to family as both a personal and creative force.
“My practice is dedicated to my children. When they are featured in my work as collaborators and subjects, I want their generation to be represented in a way that they are credited for what they can achieve at a young age,” says the artist.
“They are our future leaders and our future culture bearers. They are the ones that we are doing it for.”
She is also excited about exhibiting in Campbelltown.
“Exhibiting in Campbelltown is important to me, as I am passionate about representing Western Sydney. I am proud to be presenting a major solo exhibition at the leading institution in the region,” she said.
Campbelltown Mayor Cr Darcy Lound echoed this sentiment.
“We are thrilled to begin 2025 with a solo exhibition of such exceptional calibre,’’ he said.
“We are proud to showcase Marikit Santiago’s latest commissions, which spark meaningful dialogues and inspire creativity within the Campbelltown community and beyond,” Cr Lound said.
“We invite audiences to immerse themselves in Marikit Santiago’s artworks, which encourage collaboration and provide opportunities for everyone to experience the transformative power of art,” he said.
