AND THEN I SMILED…
Yasmin Almonte
Yasmin “Jigs” Almonte holds her 16th solo show featuring around 60 small works on paper,
March 12 - April 2, 2012 at the Liongoren Gallery, 111 New York, Cubao. Non-figurative, gestural and most of them bond-paper size – departs from the artist’s figurative, diaristic and large-scale body of works. We take the cue for this departure from earlier works from the title “And Then I Smiled…,” a reference to her successful battle in 2010 with an extremely rare cancer (stage 3 sarcoma) that originated from her jaw bone and the series of treatments at the Philippine General Hospital that culminated in a surgery that removed a large part of her jaw in 2010. The proceeds of this exhibit will help her fund her reconstructive surgery, and her maintenance regime. Feeling “half full, and half empty,” after a procedure that left her cancer-free but missing a large part of her jaw and struggling to “make sense of the senselessness of missing my students, my work, my colleagues, but only too glad to be alive,” she surrounded herself with bits of paper, paint and other materials she randomly put together and proceeded to splash, daub, whisk paint, crumple, paste, glue bits and pieces with no particular order, plan or structure. Random, unscheduled, cathartic – she laughed, sang, danced and wept during the proceedings, and largely relying on intuition and instinct, the process was akin to automatic writing celebrating life, its gains and triumph, as well as its pains and losses.
The opening on March 12, 6.30 pm is a celebration as well as an occasion to cheer up, pray and rally more resources, this time for the recovery of another artist, Lirio Salvador, who is in coma at the Lasalle hospital, Cavite following a motorcycle accident last December 30, 2011. We thus call on artists, collectors and friends of artists to rally behind Lirio in 2012, like we rallied behind Almonte, when we cheered: Go, Jigs, Fight! in 2010. Lend a Hand for Lirio is the group show featuring the works of Lirio and his artist friends which will run until March 24. On the last day at 2 pm there will be a raffle and auction of the all works on exhibit.
