LoTO

2024 | A.I.R. Gallery; Francis Colburn Gallery | USA

The mixed-media work, Loto, addresses the role of chance in the migration story of my family through collaging over a paper surface of lottery scratchers and banana leaves. Featuring a map of the Bataan Death March, it expresses the improbable nature of surviving the march during the Second World War. My late grandfather, a Filipino guerrilla soldier, was among the few prisoners of war who, against all odds, lived to tell the story.

“‘Loto’ (2024) attends to the artist’s Philippine ancestry and immigration to the United States, contrasting past hardships with the determined aspiration of a new beginning in a new land. Onto a substrate of abaca and gampi fibers, banana leaves, and lottery scratcher cards, the artist has transferred a map of the Bataan Death March, a forced march of prisoners of war—among them, the artist’s grandfather—that took place during the Second World War. Although depicting a brutal past, Gupit’s work optimistically orients toward her family’s fortune, reflecting on her grandfather’s luck in surviving the march and, as a result of his service, being able to immigrate with his family to the U.S.”⁠ — Nicole Kaack

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