When words fail to convey what we truly feel. When speaking does not help in explaining our thoughts and inner struggles– art is always there to comfort us. In the creativeness where most of us seek solace, Gracinha “Inha” Arceo is one of them– a playful and versatile contemporary artist that advocates for mental health.
For Inha, being honest and vulnerable gave her her own sense of relief. It is through her art where she is able to showcase “breaking free” from oppressing ideals and mental struggles, to be able to realize what is more important to her—own personal growth and well-being. “I wouldn’t say there was just a moment to encapsulate art being an extension of myself - but actually “multiple everyday moments” where art becomes an extension of myself as it becomes an outlet, my own safe space where I can breathe and just “be.”
“This is My Art, This is My Style”
A pivotal moment in her life when she discovered her artistic voice was way back in 2020. She was inspired to create art with women and flowers, a main element in her unique style through customary acrylic brushwork and digital illustration. The “micro or daily pivotal moments” in her life is where she can say that “this is my art, this is my style”, as long as her artworks revolve around women and flowers. “I just love to create art with flowers and women as that is how I am able to properly mentally cope and vent out some of my bottled up emotions that I feel on a daily basis. It does feel like therapy to me personally, and I feel that people are able to resonate with my work in that aspect. I am also inspired with how I am able to help people “feel better” with my art - that in itself motivates me to create more magic… through my art!”
Inha’s artistic voice continues to explore and celebrate powerful emotions of human experience– her art demonstrates figures with powerful gestures of women as an expression of self-love, healing, and hope. To her, sunflowers depict a sense of hope and transformation, which is represented through her artworks over the past years, where each piece feels like she is going through a series of daily transformations—not necessarily big changes but micro changes she experiences internally wherein she feels like a better person, one artwork at a time. The vibrant palette through floral artwork, specifically sunflowers, represent an expression of positivity and joy. “I think it’s the color - yellow that spoke loudly to me and since then it has greatly influenced my work.” For Inha, all the values that these sunflowers hold has been a continuous driving force in her creative process, for each sunflower or flower she paints has symbolic pieces of herself and her own emotions.
Making Art for Oneself–and for Others
As an advocate of mental health, Inha said that she first started creating art for herself, based on what she felt to be able to mentally cope, by giving herself that “mental freedom” to express emotions and experiences that she cannot verbally articulate. But now, she creates art for herself and for others as well. For she thought that it would be nice to create art that would make someone think and act on oneself, to be inspired or to be moved (in a good way) to do something for themselves.
The daily experiences of feeling very okay, feeling productive, and then feeling the opposite on the next day are the moments that made Inha realize that sometimes, “it’s okay not to be okay… even if it means feeling this many times a day or many times a week.” Once she slowly realized these micro-learnings everyday, she felt that she was making much more progress mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. That just like her art, she is also a work in progress.
What It Means to Truly Grow and Move Forward
On advocating self-growth, progress, and moving forward—Inha Arceo is about to have her first solo exhibit! “I wanted this exhibit to be about “breaking free” from my own inner fears and doubts about myself. Initially I was always hesitant to share my work to the public for almost 5 years since I started taking my art seriously back in 2020”
What inspired her to set up her first solo exhibit, was the contemporary art exhibition featuring modern contemporary artists, held at the Van Gogh Art Gallery, at Madrid, Spain, way back October 5-27, 2024. There, she was exposed to different artists from all over the world as well as art collectors and diplomatic representatives from various esteemed institutions, that are connected to the international aspect of the exhibition.
She would say that her most iconic painting, that also serves as the centerpiece of her exhibit is called the “Sunflower Dance”.
This festive painting celebrates authenticity as a powerful act of embracing what it is to be truly human through vibrant flourishing blooms and powerful dancing gestures. Here, she employs customary acrylics that showcase distinct powerful human gestures and express personal reactions of breaking free from oppressing ideals, situations and stigmas innate in current society. This artwork depicts women plucking petals off “floral-like” fans to symbolize letting go of oppressing ideals that can hinder anyone’s progression. “My own personal experience related to this painting is actually plucking out - a dead petal / wilted bloom of mine which is “being afraid of doing an exhibit” and since I’ve plucked out, I feel like I have tremendously grown in my profession as an artist because I was able to carve out my own unique signature style especially in my paintings.”
On the other hand, “My Bottled Up Emotions Series”, is a painting collection that unveils a series of bottled up emotions (expressed by the acrylic strokes of these floral elements) that one experiences on a daily basis. This series celebrates that it is okay for one to feel absolutely anything and everything in life, especially in a world that continues to challenge one’s authentic self. She also shared that two paintings of this collection are already pre-sold.
Lastly, Inha emphasized that in her solo exhibition, she wanted to be able to express what it meant “to break free” through her own artworks because finally, she was able to let go of her fear of actually having an exhibit. Years from now, she wishes to definitely be more open to the exhibit scene; to have more solo and group shows, to explode and make more of her artworks for people to see. The exhibit has also become a cue to celebrate her own authentic self wherein she is able to continuously fully learn and accept everything about herself (as an artist), to be able to feel joy, freedom, and full growth, to live a full meaningful life; and she wanted to share this with her viewers.
Each segment of her exhibit does not only embodies her own personal narratives but also invites the viewers to rediscover their own journeys of accepting everything beautiful and maybe unlovely about themselves, for them to “break free” to live a meaningful life. In this exhibit, Inha Arceo is able to joyfully reflect on what it means to truly “break free.” The collection of artworks is her whimsical and playful celebration of having that bold courage to accept being comfortable in one’s own skin. Each piece is a colorful tribute, brimming with hues of empowerment and charm, where viewers are invited to embrace what it means to be truly human under the banner of her favorite phrase, to “BREAK FREE.”
Catch Inha Arceo in her first Solo Exhibit!
From April 1 to April 13, 2025 at RiseSpace Art Gallery.
📍 RiseSpace Art Gallery, 2/F Comuna Bldg, 238 Pablo Ocampo Sr. Ext., Makati City
Free Admission
🕒 Open Monday to Sunday, 12PM-8PM
