About the Artist
Lyra Abueg Garcellano (b. 1972, Philippines) is a Filipino contemporary artist whose multidisciplinary practice spans painting, installation, moving image, comics, and text-based works. Educated at Ateneo de Manila University and the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts, she has developed a body of work that critically engages with identity, displacement, memory, and the systems that shape cultural narratives and artistic value. A recipient of the Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists Award in 2006, Garcellano often incorporates literary, historical, and psychological references into her visual language, positioning her work within broader discussions of history, culture, and the structures that influence how art is produced and understood.

Description
An Elegy: After T.S. Eliot’s Wasteland I (2025) presents clusters of pale blossoms emerging from a shadowed landscape rendered in deep greens, blacks, and muted maroons, creating a brooding and contemplative atmosphere. The upper portion of the canvas carries luminous floral forms that appear suspended in darkness, while the lower register dissolves into a murky reflective field that echoes and distorts their presence, suggesting water, shadow, or memory. Referencing T.S. Eliot’s modernist poem The Waste Land, the painting evokes themes of fragmentation, mourning, and fragile renewal, transforming botanical imagery into a psychological landscape where beauty, decay, and reflection coexist within a quiet elegiac mood.