PLAYGROUND OF THE GODS

Playground of the Gods is an invented mental Universe that allows anything and everything to happen. It is both a surreal and superreal place where fantasies materialize and given freedom to exist and occur. Virtually real, these environments allow the inner godness of the child to flourish. This is where the child creates. This is where the child takes on the role of the imaginator, the creator, the inventor, the producer, and the actor. This is where the child takes on and plays the character required by the imagined role. This is where the child plays the chosen role.

And… in each of us is this little child at play.

There is nothing much more exciting that watching these little gods at play.

In Derrick Macutay’s work Dream Flight of Icarus (2010, 36x24 inches, acrylic on canvas), the artist tells us “how the child in each one of us wants to soar free and high but due to limitations and restrictions, we can only live to fly in borrowed time.” Life is short and being human does not allow us to fulfill our desires, specially our fantasies. It is only in the mind that we can do so. As with all the creations of the artist, Macutay’s works “infuse humanness in techno,” using his own words. In my own words, it is a matter of putting back humanity in technology, because after all technology was invented by humans, for their own purpose.

In Odette Cagandahan’s Play Money (2010, 34x33 inches, oil and paper on canvas), the child makes money an integral part of its life, but not for its real essence. Carefully watching children’s casual glances, to them, money is just another toy, or another means to achieve a dream, a mental desire, or even a moment of happiness. Children gather little information. They leave no memory in mind. In her paintings, the artist Cagandahan tries to “capture more of their personality than their physical features.” It is in the uniqueness of gesture, the facial contortion, and in the innate expressions in her paintings that her audiences see the casualness of the child’s attitude toward life itself.

In Noel Solis’s Young Dystopian (2010, 48x36 inches, oil on canvas), the artist declares “In a place where there seems no hope, you can still find a real face of real happiness. For this kind of child, anywhere can be a good and nice playground.” The child at play, or for that matter at work, environment simply does not matter. Any place is home to them.

Allow me to invite you to experience the world of the little gods at play.

Playground of the Gods is an exhibition curated by Artis Corpus Gallery. It opens at 6:00 in the evening of Monday 6 September 2010 at the Inner Room of Sining Kamalig in Gateway Mall, Araneta Center, Cubao, Quezon City. It features some twenty works in oil or acrylic on canvas by the artists Odette Cagandahan, Derrick Macutay, and Noel Solis. For further information, please sms 0920-9537426 or email artiscorpusgallery@yahoo.com.

Exhibition Notes by Enrico J. L. Manlapaz, culled from the statements of the artists.