Thy Kingdom Come

Working across painting and sculpture, Marikit Santiago anchors her practice in references, imagery, and symbolism drawn from her Australian-Filipino ancestry, Catholicism, and the Western Art canon. Santiago’s emotionally charged figurative work negotiates the line between the personal and the universal. Her paintings are narratively based and often feature portraits of herself and her family. Yet these intimate renderings simultaneously become metaphoric conduits for thinking through the nuance of the human condition.

Spanning three meters, the painting Thy Kingdom Come situates Santiago’s family in a spliced tableaux that borrows scenes from Catholic iconography as well as Filipino folklore and the Disney universe. The painting reframes Filipino origin stories, the Garden of Eden and The Little Mermaid to tell a cyclical story of life folding into death. The story is set against the backdrop of a hybridised paradise that splinters her parent’s garden in Western Sydney with native Australian vegetation that show signs of regrowth after fire. Here, life and death, beginnings and endings are all intertwined.

Pen and paint markings by Santi Mateo Santiago and Sarita Santiago, collaboration with Maella Santiago