Allan Balisi doesn’t seem particularly interested in being likeable. In conversation, the visual artist speaks with bluntness and impatience often associated with punk itself. He’s dismissive of sentimentality, skeptical of polished political language, and at ease talking about struggle rather than resolution. This abrasiveness runs through “Salamander,” his first solo exhibition at MO_Space.
The show is steeped in references to punk gigs in underground scenes, hinting every so subtly at political unrest, while pulling from his personal witnessing of exhausting, routine survival in contemporary Philippine life.
“Hopeful ako na sana nai-express ko somehow na ang personal ay pulitika,” Balisi says, “at bawat isa ay bahagi ng collective human struggle towards liberation and peace.”
The phrase “The personal is political,” popularized during second-wave feminism, argues that the struggles of private life are inseparable from larger political systems. And while the artist does pull images from nonconformist communities around him, the paintings themselves are more emotionally restrained than his rhetoric suggests, showing a mutedness that’s jarring with the person that he is.
But it’s as they say, right—or specifically, as Roland Barthes said, in “The Death of the Author,” that you have to separate the art from the artist.
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Painting from real life
For years, Balisi was known to work through collected screen grabs and film stills from existing narratives. Then, he would translate these into his stark scenes, flashing gestures in washed-out whites and smoky grays, seemingly suspended between photography and memory.
For “Salamander,” James Tana notes in the exhibition text how the show marks “a form of self-revelation,” with Balisi no longer pulling source material from films or digital archives but from his own photographs.
“Mas organic siya, mas personal,” Balisi explains the process. “Mas direkta kong nailalabas ang imahe na gusto kong ipinta.”
The “Salamander” in the exhibition’s title is also not so much a straight-up symbol of regeneration like the amphibian’s nature, as Basili is quick to dismiss overly sentimental readings of healing and rebirth. “Masyado na kasing romanticized ‘yong anggulong iyon,” he says.
Instead, he frames the exhibition as a kind of visual journaling, where ordinary acts in our country become like survival. “Kina-capture ko ‘yong mga tipikal na nangyayari sa paligid ko,” he says. “Ikaw, sila, lahat tayo na araw-araw ay nagsu-survive.”
This runs throughout the show with paintings tethered to lived experience, with moments of unrest and release. And while he talks conceptually about punk, it’s not punk in a stereotypical sense that’s chaotic or aggressively gestural. Formally, he creates very controlled work. Look at “Wildflower,” which shows an isolated, highly stylized female figure against a black background, caught in intimacy and stillness that feels almost elegant.
So while Balisi speaks through the language of punk, he still paints through restraint, perhaps prioritizing mood over the rupture he feels. And in it, you can sense the exhaustion, alienation, and muted political fatigue.
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Punk as a way of life
Balisi explains his painting “Years of Discontent,” which translates a photo he took documenting a gig. The work shows the back of a man’s jacket with a firearm on it (actually the logo of the Japanese punk metal band G.I.S.M.).
He recounts his experience, “Nasa gitna ako ng crowd taking pictures of attendees habang nagkakantahan at nagsasayawan sila. Dama mo sa kanila ‘yong struggle sa pinaglalaban. Pero masaya sila; sine-celebrate nila na andito pa rin tayo despite the hardships na hinaharap natin araw-araw.”
“Hindi focal point ‘yong firearm,” he adds matter-of-factly. “Does an image of a firearm seem loud or shocking these days? We encounter police brutality and killing of farmers, researchers, and activists on a daily basis… Kaya hindi na siguro nakakagulat na makakita ng firearm sa dami ng pulis dito sa atin.”
So it seems, in his painting, his perspective is deeply rooted in punk, not just as an aesthetic reference, but as a worldview, too. “Ang punk na alam ko, hindi lang siya music, way of life siya,” Balisi gushes.
Comic panels and political memory
Besides punk, the artist shares how he owes much of his visual language to comics and graphic storytelling. He cites influences ranging from Frank Miller and Alan Moore to Filipino comic artists Hal Santiago and Vincent Kua. He speaks enthusiastically about “Hate” by Peter Bagge, which documented 1990s Seattle subculture, alongside superhero and antihero titles like “Swamp Thing” and “Miracleman.”
“Ang comics kasi, for every panel naitatranslate niya into visual language ‘yong narrative,” he says.
The same could be said of his paintings, which come through like suspended panels, heavy with atmosphere. While the themes are intended to be politically charged, the tension doesn’t always fully translate visually. The paintings don’t really “erupt,” perhaps due to his typical style of restrained imagery and muted palettes. Which brings to mind the question: Can the gallerygoers really see the political reading embedded in the visual language? Or is it mainly carried by the discourse of the artist?
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Looking back, Balisi recalls how his work began leaning more explicitly political around his 2019 exhibition “Braving Wild Winds” at Blanc Gallery, where he has often exhibited. This was during a difficult personal period, although he recounts how he was supported by close communities and friends.
“Alam mo, ‘yong act of resistance in itself,” he says, “gusto ko makita ng mga tao na it’s a win—kasi may ginawa tayong aksyon.”
In “Salamander,” Balisi continues to avoid clean political statements, attempting to take action through his work. Perhaps “Free, Free, Palestine” is the exhibition’s most overtly political work, with its painted flag of the war-torn country rendered in shadowy folds of fabric.
At the same time, these paintings remain tied to underground, subcultural communities where exhaustion is caught alongside resistance, and noise alongside silence. And like comic panels suspended mid-narrative, Balisi’s works linger in tension rather than resolution, less interested in clarity and more in documenting the uneasy feeling of remaining awake to the realities around us.
