Gold’s still king: Inside Iya Regalario’s Oro

Written by Nikki Ignacio

No, this is hardly about resilience. Not a story about how we miraculously pulled through and lived to tell the tale. What this really is, is seething rage, albeit not the blind kind. Only the searing and burning kind, hopefully like wildfire.

Much like many (or what sometimes feels like too few), visual artist Iya Regalario felt the crushing weight of the political climate, with the turnout of the 2022 presidential elections serving as the final straw, the cherry on top, the last fuse to blow. On top of the collective grief and pain Regalario felt deeply, it was brutally close to home. For Regalario, whose father was among the many tortured and incarcerated under Marcos Sr.’s regime, putting a Marcos back in power felt like the sharpest slap in the face and brought out dystopian fears of the worst that had yet to come. It seems like the worst that could happen did, in fact, happen, right under our watch all over again. 

There scarcely seems like a way out except right through.

Oro Regalario’s most head-on approach to personal and socio-political issues that commonly drive her art and life’s work. Using pyrography and acrylic and ink on various types of wood, Regalario illustrates the vapid states of greed and man’s centuries-old obsession with gold and power. After all these years and chances given to learn—repeatedly—from past mistakes, money still proves to rule and govern our every move for survival. Five standalone portraits express the artist’s perspective of the absurdity, gaudiness, and clownishness of political machinery and agenda like sinister mandalas, malignant forces trapping society in an endless feedback loop but packaged pleasingly like a plump poisoned apple.

Oro: Suit of Gold, continues her series of tarot portraits under the Los Indios Filipinos Minor Arcana deck, which she began in 2019 when the first 11 cards of the Major Arcana were exhibited as part of her solo show Naivete at The Metro Gallery. Following Manos: Suit of Hands, this set focuses on “the element of gold as representation of a culture of greed or attachment to material riches”. Each card illustrates concepts, events, or people that Regalario has personally found to be “greatly symbolic to local political conditions that dictate the quality of living in the Philippines.” It’s the class war depicted in memes, noontime shows, and stranger-than-fiction headlines.

The disconnect between the reality of those who have much and and those who have net-negative, but the limits of our privilege sometimes render us despondent and numb. As with her peers, recent events not only redefined not only the artist’s political perspectives, but also her identity as a Filipino. Realizing she needed the time and space to heal, Regalario acknowledged the process and went back to the fundamentals of her raison d’etre. With open eyes, acceptance, and less haste to heal, she continues to pick up the pieces - particularly of her weapons of choice and personal motivations—to allow herself to “accept what is and what will be”. Gold may be king, but fire still melts gold, after all.

Still, this isn’t a story of resilience. This is madness, coupled with the mad will to still hope. But this is also a bellow back into the void to assert dominance.