Gil Batle, Almost Sanctuary, Catharine Clark Gallery
Bouquet Shank, 2025
Acrylic on ceramic
8 inches in diameter
By: Hugh Leeman
Gil Batle's show Almost Sanctuary at Catharine Clark Gallery delves unabashedly into the artist's dark past through symbolism and storytelling that speak of the artist Filipino American identity, a life of freedom and incarceration, as well as self destruction and creativity all intricately rendered in faux blue-and-white porcelain, hand carved ostrich eggs and two trophies made from the reassembled glass of broken whiskey bottles celebrating his victory over the demons of addiction.
Batle, a Filipino American raised in San Francisco, California, was first incarcerated at 14. Early struggles with drug addiction led to forging checks and IDs, leading to two decades in the California state prison system, from the infamous San Quentin Prison to Jamestown, known amongst inmates as the "Gladiator School" for its violent reputation [1]. At the end of his last stint in prison, a prison counselor suggested he move to the Philippines to break his cyclical entanglement with crime on the streets of San Francisco [2]. The counselor used the money Batle earned from prison jobs to buy the plane ticket that would change the course of his life when he moved to his parents' native Philippines. He continues his current art practice from a remote island in the archipelago.
While in prison, he drew portraits of inmates' loved ones and began teaching himself to tattoo using soot from burning plastic chess pieces, mixed with shampoo or lotion, to create black tattoo ink [3]. This skill earned him fame among inmates, providing him protection and income. The intensity of circumstance channeled into his creativity, at which Batle marvels, "Deprivation brings out the creativity in any man. It's unbelievable, the creativity there [in prison]. Unbelievable."
Chain Gang, 2016-2019
Base relief carving on ostrich egg
Unique
Ostrich egg: 5 x 4 x 4 (approx)
Marble base
From a previous body of work, Almost Sanctuary exhibits two of the artist's phenomenally skilled carvings on ostrich eggs, from which he first gained renown. Batle went from showing the carved eggs at a convention center trade show to art museums through recounting his experiences incarcerated in bas-relief on the 1/16-inch-thick surface of the egg, using a high-speed dental drill [4]. The egg for the artist is a symbol of new life and fragility, while the stories are a testament to his transformation from the darkest parts of society. Of this precarious journey, he says, "If you go past that sixteenth of an inch, you practically destroy the egg. And I think that kind of fragility is where I stand emotionally, I think.”[5]
In the two ostrich eggs on display, the shell is carved away to create chain link forms, exposing the egg's interior. Handcuffs frame a prison scene as an inmate gets a tattoo on his head, or a blind man with a cane attempts to find his way, stepping from tree trunk to tree trunk in an endless forest of the unknown. Carved above the scene of the man searching for his next step are Common Swifts, a motif associated with prison tattoos that, as the artist notes, is a species of bird that spends much of its life searching for sanctuary.
Trophy, 2025
Solder (60% tin and 40% lead), glass (broken whiskey bottles)
Etched with a high-speed dental drill
14 3/4 x 11 1/4 x 8 1/2 inches
Two trophies, each standing over a foot tall, made from the shattered glass shards of whiskey bottles, etched with personal symbols created with the same dental drill used on the ostrich eggs, are soldered together to celebrate the artist's overcoming addictions from his dark past. The artist notes, "I struggled with drugs and alcohol. During that struggle, in anger or sadness, there were times I would smash my whiskey bottle in a drunken stupor. Today, I know [sic] longer fight with alcohol. These glass trophies are an evolution from that struggle of drinking to conquering it. The symbol of victory made of shattered whiskey bottles." [6]
Trophies and ostrich eggs aside, Almost Sanctuary's focus is Batle's blue-toned paintings on plates that take on the appearance of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain, which was traded to the Americas through the Philippines during Spanish colonization of the islands. Yet, these artworks are neither porcelain nor is the blue pigment the traditional cobalt glaze associated with Chinese blue-and-white porcelain. Instead, the works are ceramic and acrylic, reflecting the resourceful nature of Batle's creativity while alluding to his past as a forger. Batle's early profit from his artistic ability was making hand forged cashier's checks [7] to support his meth addiction. Batle saw the forgery of checks as a form of art, saying, "The only thing I knew best was art, which was fraud and forgery." [2]
On several plates, flowers grow atop prison shanks, knives handmade in prison from a single piece of metal, with cloth wrapping one end to protect the aggressor's hands. The shanks are delicately rendered, as if roots stabbed into the soil, which resembles a close-up of the layers of skin, epidermis, dermis, and subcutaneous tissue. From the steel shaft of the prison shank, tiny roots branch out into the surrounding environment. Above the shank's cloth-wrapped handle, the detailed bouquets blossom. A decorative pattern in black rounds the plate's basin. The simplicity of the pattern bears the heavy weight of Batle's long-time reality of counting days served, as upon closer inspection, the pattern recurs in several of the show's plates, featuring roman numeral hashmarks bundled in countless clusters of five encircling the plates' central scenes.
Pineapple, 2025
Acrylic on ceramic
10 x 9 inches
In Pineapple (2025), the fruit that is a major export crop of the Philippines, reveals its prickly patterned surface to be rows of inmates with their heads bowed and their hands behind their backs. On one side of the plate's edge is a prison watchtower, on the other a paradisal beach.
Maya Chestnut Munia, 2025
Acrylic on ceramic
6 x 12 inches
Beyond flora, birds form another recurring theme in the artist's visual vernacular. Swifts escape from cages with prison yards and towers, on the plates' lips, the Swift's freedom contrasts with Maya Chestnut Munia (2025), in which six Maya Munia, the national bird of the Philippines, sit on a branch, chain-ganged together, the edge of the plate depicting the tropical fauna of the Philippines.
The Tinikling Bird, 2025
Acrylic on ceramic
10 x 13 inches
While the bird paintings are largely allegorical icons in The Tinikling Bird (2025), a layered narrative appears in linear depth perspective. The Tinkling, a bird woven into the cultural fabric of the Philippines, is revered for its dance-like movements that enable it to avoid traps and navigate through difficult terrain, inspiring generations of folk dances in the Philippines [8]. In such performances, a dancer stands in the middle of two bamboo poles, both several feet long, held by the dancer's companions, who move the poles back and forth, striking them together, forcing the dancer to hop and dance to avoid having their ankles smashed between the poles. In Batle's rendition, the bird replaces the dancer, and instead of performance companions, corrections officers move the poles, surrounded by the community clapping and playing percussion with the steep palm tree topography of the Philippines as backdrop.
Fil-am Self Portrait, 2025
Acrylic on ceramic
11 x 15 inches
Self-portraits add to the show's central theme of unflinching honesty intertwined with self-actualization. In a particularly nuanced piece, Fil-Am Self Portrait (2025), a double-headed Carabao, the traditional draft animal of the Philippines used for plowing rice, looks in opposite directions. An inner conflict of the shadow and the self arises from the Carabao's back, as two versions of the artist confront one another. One with his hands raised, ready for a fistfight, wears a prison-style knit hat and a standard-issue shirt, while the other wears no shirt, his head crowned by a traditional conical rice farmer's hat adapted for the sun's heat. In this case, his raised hands gently hold a bird as if readying it for flight. Covering the Carabao's body is a combination of Tagalog, the widely spoken language that serves as the basis of the island's national language [9], and English text. Words like "Im Busy" in English are aside phrases like "Salamat Po", meaning "thank you", with the word "Po" denoting respect to an elder. Interlocked handcuffs threaded with cloth, as well as Carabao horns inscribed "Fil-Am" (Filipino American), relate complex elements of the artist's life: incarcerated and free, fighter and sustainer of the bird.
Striking a deeply vulnerable tone through a recurring motif in his oeuvre, a belt in Precarious (2025), inscribed with the words "I beat you because I love you," encircles a naval officer squatting on a spinning sphere emblazoned with keys, locks, and barbed wire. Batle's father was a naval officer; the belt appears in previous series aside scenes of abuse endured as a child.
Caudal Autotomy, 2025
Acrylic on ceramic
9 inches in diameter
The artist's survivor spirit appears throughout Almost Sanctuary, yet in Caudal Autotomy (2025) it is most apparent: a realistically rendered lizard turns to look towards its missing tail; in place of its spine is a broken chain, while around the plate are dozens of lizard tails broken off the reptile's body. The work and its title reference the biological phenomenon in which lizards can detach their tails from their bodies, releasing themselves from a predator's grasp, and eventually regrow the tail. The painting suggests that this phenomenon is a skill the artist developed to survive life in prison, which, combined with creativity and dedication, empowered Batle as an ex-convict outside prison.
Life after prison has been a challenge in itself that Batle has taken on through his art. Encouraged by his brother Agelio to "create something that is you," the artist says he had no idea who he was yet, as he thought about it, his brother said, "what makes you angry, what makes you sad, what makes you alive." Ultimately, the word anger stood out, and then he realized the answer was prison. He started carving stories from prison, asking his brother if it was ok. His brother said, "It's not that it's ok, it's true, it came from a real place." [2]
In a world starved for truth, Batle's art speaks from a place unafraid to remove the mask and reveal a history of afflictions beneath the eggshell veneer. Fragile as it may be, when mixed with his creativity, something remarkable happens; we find an artist and artwork that are astonishingly and refreshingly human.
Citations:
“Gil Batle - Biography.” Ricco/Maresca, www.riccomaresca.com/artists/37-gil-batle/biography.
Gallery, Ricco/Maresca. “Fragile (a Portrait of Gil Batle).” Vimeo, 28 July 2025, vimeo.com/245652572.
Frank, Priscilla. “After 25 Years in Prison, Artist Etches Memories Onto Eggshells.” HuffPost, 11 Jan. 2016, www.huffpost.com/entry/after-25-years-in-prison-artist-etches-memories-onto-eggshells_n_568ac251e4b06fa688830906.
Foster, John. “Beauty in Brutality.” DesignObserver, 17 Aug. 2024, designobserver.com/beauty-in-brutality.
“ From Prison Cells to Egg Shells.” CBS News, 27 Dec. 2015, www.cbsnews.com/news/from-prison-cells-to-egg-shells.
“Gil Batle, Trophy, 2025.” Catharine Clark Gallery, cclarkgallery.com/exhibitions/44/works/artworks-22203-gil-batle-trophy-2025.
Jovanovich, Alex. “Gil Batle.” Artforum, 1 Apr. 2018, www.artforum.com/events/gil-batle-239507.
Nerman, Danielle. “Fancy Footwork: Philippine Folk Dancing Mimics Movement of Birds.” CBC, 14 Mar. 2021, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/filipino-folk-dancing-calgary-1.5944691.
Tagalog (Filipino) | Department of Asian Studies. asianstudies.cornell.edu/research/tagalog-filipino.
