: Gentle Beasts: Totems of the Present | Jerry Morada

Gentle Beasts: Totems of the Present by Jerry Morada

On view at Galerie Joaquin Collective

March 3 – 15,2026

For his latest exhibition, Jerry Morada advances his sustained inquiry into the animal as archetype, refining the figure into a language of distilled form. Carved in marble presented on dark wooden plinths, the sculptures depict stylized bulls, reduced to essential volumes—articulated as measured arcs. The treatment resists descriptive realism. Instead, Morada privileges contour and mass, allowing curvature and proportion to structure meaning. The resulting forms feel at once archaic and contemporary, recalling the human impulse to encode values—strength, labor, endurance—within the animal body.

The chromatic range of the stones extends the expressive register of the works without departing from their formal restraint. Polished surfaces catch and diffuse light, emphasizing the continuity of plane and the integrity of silhouette. Subtle shifts in posture introduce variation within an otherwise cohesive typology. These gestures suggest potential movement yet remain anchored in composure. Morada’s approach situates the sculptures within a broader lineage of modernist simplification, where stylization becomes a means of intensifying presence rather than diminishing it.

The designation of these works as “totems” foregrounds their symbolic and communal dimension. Traditionally, a totem functions as an emblemic figure—often animal—through which a community articulates ancestry, protection, identity, or shared belief. It is less an object of ornament than a vessel of collective meaning, anchoring memory and value within tangible form. In reimagining the bull as a contemporary totem, Morada recalibrates monumentality at an intimate scale. The sculptures do not dominate space; they inhabit it with density and equilibrium, embodying steadiness rather than spectacle. In an era often defined by excess and acceleration, Gentle Beasts proposes an alternative ethic—one grounded in balance, tactility, and the dynamic impact of form.

Jerry Morada (b.1979) graduated from the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts and made a name for himself as an emerging contemporary artist.  He began his career working as an artist for Probe Productions, Inc., producer of the award-winning "Probe Team". He is among the founders of the Guevarra Group together with Edwin Tres Reyes, Gig de Pio, and Dominic Rubio. Morada took part in Art Expo Malaysia 2009 under Galerie Joaquin’s booth. in 2014, he won the GSIS Prize in Sculpture. Jerry Morada has always sought to fuse elements of abstraction and figuration in an engrossing configuration of texture, color and composition in his body of work.

Gentle Beasts: Totems of the Present by Jerry Morada is on view at Galerie Joaquin Collective starting March 3 – 15, 2026. Galerie Joaquin Collective is located at the 3^rd Floor of Greenbelt 5, Legazpi St., Makati. For inquiries, contact Galerie Joaquin Collective at +63 998453 6947 or email galeriejoaquinonline@gmail.com

Text by: Noy Bedaña