”The Philosophical Tales Of The Ancient Raconteur: The Steampunk Surrealism Of Nestor Perez Ong:” This one-man exhibit by Nestor Perez Ong, leader of the Steampunk Indio Collective, turns one of the exhibit halls of Gateway Gallery into a brass-bound archive of dreams. Each piece in “The Philosophical Tales Of The Ancient Raconteur” began in Nestor’s sleep, in fragments of memory and myth that refuse to stay buried.
He then rebuilds those visions through the steampunk lens: Clockwork maidens harvest fields of copper. Gas-masked Malakas and Maganda are awakened by an automaton raven coming out of a copper bamboo stem. Baroque churches sprout smokestacks and rivets. The result is not nostalgia, but a collision: precolonial spirit, colonial trauma, and industrial futurism all welded onto the same canvas.
