Where Architecture Meets Ambiguity
Architect-artist Jeff Siscar’s first solo exhibition, Squares of Water, explores the profound tension between rigid architectural structure and fluid uncertainty
Words Rebelyn Beyong
Photos courtesy of Jeff Siscar and SPRUCE Gallery
April 29, 2026
There is something inherently unsettling about an exhibition titled “Squares of Water.” Water, in its purest state, moves, disperses, and famously resists any defined edges. Yet this striking contradiction, imposing order on an element that naturally resists containment, sits at the very heart of Filipino visual artist and architect Jeff Siscar’s debut solo exhibition.
Opening at SPRUCE Gallery in Ortigas Center, Pasig City, the show serves as an open invitation for visitors to slow down and actively question the reliability of their own perception.
Artist Jeff Siscar
Imposing order on the uncontainable
Trained as an architect at the University of Santo Tomas, Siscar is currently a principal architect and co-founder of Celllo Design Collective. In the rigorous world of architecture, decisions must be firmly resolved: buildings must stand, and a drawn line carries heavy physical consequences.
Head In The Clouds - 36 in x 36 in - oil on canvass
However, on his canvases, that strict expectation significantly loosens. While a semblance of structure remains, its purpose shifts away from securing a definitive answer, operating instead to open an uncertain condition.
Spaces appear legible and clear at first glance, but upon closer inspection, lines hesitate. Directions refuse to settle, and surfaces that suggest depth suddenly withdraw, subverting the expectation of a logical end.
A psychological staging of space
Curated by Ric Gindap, the Manila-based branding strategist and founder of Design For Tomorrow, the collection offers a masterful display of psychological spatialism. Siscar’s spaces are not merely fixed locations, but rather architectural environments that register profound states of mind.
Let The Current Take You - 36 in x 36 in - oil on canvass
Viewers will notice subtle elasticity and shifts in logic that recall the great surrealists, with traces of M.C. Escher, René Magritte, Giorgio de Chirico, and Salvador Dalí echoing through the precise handling of space. Yet Siscar holds these artistic impulses in an indecisive restraint, using small dislocations to alter the entire atmosphere without relying on phantasmagorical excess.
Elementary shapes like the circle, square, and triangle act as compositional components that echo Kandinsky and the Bauhaus search for essential form.
The geometry of suspension
The Backyard - 20 in x 30 in - oil on canvass
Within these unnerving environments, figures frequently appear entirely alone. They approach, descend, or remain permanently suspended in the precise interval right before an action completes itself.
It is an eerie mirror of human psychology; like architecture, the paintings feature thresholds—a doorway, a ledge, or the edge of a pool—where movement carries highly uncertain repercussions. Water is an ever-present force here, transcending mere materiality as it reflects, distorts, and repeatedly absorbs. It suggests transparency while deliberately withholding confirmation.
Transit through Dimensions - 18 in x 24 in - oil on canvass
Siscar’s canvases do not spoon-feed meaning or offer a comfortable, logical conclusion. Instead, they hold tension aloft, inviting the observer to step inside and explore. We have a habit of asking art to provide explanations of itself, but Siscar, with his self-effacing demeanor, does not answer.
The exhibition ultimately poses a far more interesting question than simply asking what the art means: Where do you place yourself within these spaces? Whether you are measuring the distance at the edge or already mid-descent, “Squares of Water” waits to see what it might cost you to face the plunge. The exhibition runs until May 8 at SPRUCE Gallery.
