Datu Arellano

Tahigami

Geometric thread drawings

Tahigami

Sometime in the year 2011 I thought of giving this odd name to this personal art project. It is a word blend, or portmanteau, of the Filipino word tahi and the Japanese word gami. Tahi is stitch or sew in English. Gami (or kami) is paper (as in origami). Taken literally, Tahigami would mean stitching on paper. I have a number of artworks that make use of this method of embroidering on paper, however the project has evolved away from its literal beginnings and has become so much more. The extended (and subjective) meaning of Tahi is to create new, and discover hidden, connections; while Gami is surface, context, constraints, and boundaries. Tahigami espouses action, evolution, and the blossoming of the self through art and science.