It could certainly be said that Fort Lauderdale-based artist Katya Neptune’s latest work is a family affair. “Descendants,” part of the Artist Innovation Grant winner’s “Chronicles of Visions” series, features a series of portraits depicting members of her large extended family in the Philippines. Some are placed in picture frames and distorted in mosaic-like assemblages. Others are screen-printed on hanging fabric curtains.
All of the people in the show are relatives of Neptune’s late father Chuck, whom the artist never met while he was alive and to whom the show is dedicated. That makes the story of how she connected to his side of the family all the more uncanny: As the title alludes to, she saw their faces one day in a vision.
“I’ve had so many visions. I’ve forgotten so much of them, I started documenting them maybe 10 years ago,” she says. “But this is the one that I could never forget.”
Neptune’s visions are not dreams or hallucinations. She sees them while she’s awake and lucid and describes them as vivid images she sees when she closes her eyes – “like in color, as if I’m looking at you right now.” One day, she began to see the faces of her father’s family members – the floating blue portraits that begin the exhibition are a recreation of what she saw – yet without knowing him she didn’t realize who they were. It was only after her Tita (aunt) Gwen got in touch with her through the genealogy website Ancestry.com that she began to reconnect with them.
From there she discovered a lineage of “healers, babaylans (shamans), voodooists, and seers,” in the words of the exhibition statement, that gave an explanation to her visions that felt more authentic than what Western psychology could provide. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the artist began to view her conditions in a context different from mental illness.
“My visions here in this country would be considered and labeled as psychosis when my ancestors all share the same gifts,” she says. “It’s normal (there), and in this country it’s stigmatized.”
Neptune was born in the Philippines and moved to the U.S. when she was 14; aside from a brief stint in Las Vegas she’s lived most of her adult life in Broward County. Her family were members of the Hare Krishna Movement. Neptune stepped away from the Hindu sect and eventually turned to Christianity, but most of the family are still devotees, and her unique path through these various forms of spirituality informs her work. For instance, two altars with incense holders are placed next to a portrait of Chuck, one depicting the Hindu deity Jagannath, the other a statue of the lion-faced Narasimha-deva. Chuck had tattoos of both deities, and Neptune also has a tattoo of Jagannath.
“These are deities because he died a Hare Krishna,” she explains. “It’s my way of releasing him.”
There’s also a significance to the abstract, glyph-like markings that surround each face, both drawn in with markers and overlaid with a projector. They’re derived from Neptune’s practice of mind-mapping, a method of organizing and visualizing thought which she uses to cope with her ADHD and BPD symptoms. This would lead to her developing her own form of abstract mapping while traveling on an airplane.
“I got really manic, and mind and word mapping wasn’t enough to help me self-soothe and ground and organize my thoughts,” she recalls. “I started to do what I had called ‘abstract mapping’ for so long. It happened organically, like I couldn’t write the words fast enough, I couldn’t journal enough.”
Eventually she learned from a curator that this type of practice, “mark-making,” isn’t without precedence in the arts. The action paintings of Jackson Pollock and the polka-dots of Yayoi Kusama both serve as prominent examples of the technique. Neptune does most of her mapping on a Buddha Board water-painting tool gifted to her by her daughter, also an artist, and the way she describes her process evokes an element of mysticism.
“God has the Holy Spirit to speak through me, and I map. And as it dries, I’m creating something that’s abstract. It’s 90 percent abstract, but when it has dried, I’m seeing these figures and I document them.”
IF YOU GO
WHAT: “Katya Neptune: Descendents (Chronicles of Visions)”
WHERE: Hollywood Art and Culture Center, 1650 Harrison St., Hollywood
WHEN: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, Noon to 4 p.m. Saturday through Sunday, open by appointment Tuesday.
TICKETS: $10 for general admission; $5 for seniors, students (with ID), youth ages 13-17; free for museum members, children ages 12 and under, active U.S. military personnel (with ID) and their families, teachers (with school ID), NARM members (with valid membership card), and Museums for All with valid Snap EBT card plus valid photo ID (admission for cardholder and up to 3 additional guests)
INFORMATION: (954) 921-3274 and artandculturecenter.org
