Monday, February 9, 2009
Sunday, February 8, 2009
UNANG HAYAG SINING
GALERIE ANNA PRESENTS UNANG HAYAG SINING: EMERGING ARTISTS 2009
To celebrate the National Arts Month of February, Galerie Anna, a world-class service provider of the Philippine and Global Art in the national and international market, proudly presents the exhibition: “Unang Hayag Sining: Emerging Artists 2009,” from February 12 to March 12, 2009. “Unang Hayag Sining” showcases the works of thirty emerging and upcoming young Filipino Artists who have proven their worth in the highly competitive national and international market of art. They provide a fascination cross section of talent and stylistic diversity which characterizes the strength of contemporary Philippine Art.
Included in the exhibition are the following: Benidict Abigan, Nemo Aguilla, Max Balatbat, Arnel Brillantes, Froilan Calayag, Jigger Cruz, Nill Cruz, Cesar Delgado, Randalf Dilla, Dexter Fernandez, Billy Francisco, Fitz Herrera, Joselito Jandayan, Joseph Laureano, Egai Lising, Dave Lock, Derrick Macutay, Alrashdi Mohammad, Neil Pasilan, Marcial Pontillas, Joel Quinonez, Henry Royales, Arthur Sanchez, Dick Jose Santos, Katrina Anna Tan, Eman Servito, Albert Sy, Mitch Valera, Valerie Valen Valero, and Mark Villanueva. The exhibition opening of “Unang Hayag Sining: Emerging Artists 2009” will be on Thursday, February 12, 2009 at 6PM. Galerie Anna is located at the 7th floor, Ramon Magsaysay Center, 1680 Roxas Boulevard corner Dr. J. Quintos Street, Manila. For details, please call Tel. # 567-94-83. You may email Galerie Anna at info@galerieanna.com or at galerieanna@yahoo.com or log on to www.galerieanna.com.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
UNDER THE WATCHFUL EYES
'Under the Watchful Eyes'
2nd solo exhibition of Mark Andy Garcia
7-27 February 2009
Art is like a journal
By Clarissa Chikiamco
Art is like a journal, Mark Andy Garcia once said. If it is a journal, the selected works in this exhibition script the startling, tumultuous past year Garcia has had. The unusual succession of events that have unfolded in Garcia's life within close proximity to one other has placed the artist squarely in an overwhelming test of his disposition. Briefly, the story of this episode of Garcia's life is this:
Rochelle and Raquel, Garcia's two younger sisters at nineteen and seventeen years old (both single and still in school), wound up with overlapping unplanned pregnancies. His older brother, Rhyan, got married but, within a month, forlornly had to leave his pregnant wife behind to work in Taiwan for much needed finances. In addition, the kidneys of Garcia's father stopped functioning and regular (and expensive) dialysis sessions became necessary. And like many mothers who become the family's resilient pillar in times of crisis, Garcia's mother has more than dutifully stepped up to her task as the caring, loving wife and mother who sources her strength from places of unplumbed depths.
Now, Garcia, the second of the four children, is amidst and in between all of this.
While seemingly aloof in manner should one meet him in person, Garcia's composed exterior veil a tempest beneath. The furor and confusion that Garcia rightly feels for all these occurrences is directly seen and felt in these exhibition's works. The works were each created quickly and unplanned in a torrential flood of feeling – in the need to suddenly discharge these hot flashes of intense emotion and moments of great duress. Grief, anger, despair, sympathy and bewilderment are bared in Garcia's childlike brash slashing strokes and in the impetuous scribbled phrases found all over his paintings. His selection of damp browns, purples and greens further insinuate the artist's brooding and foreboding mood.
Focusing on Garcia's mother are the works Charity, Sorrow, My Mother and She's Always There. They, in some sense, pay tribute to her vigor, her steadfastness and indeed her anguish as well, as Garcia perceives it. Depicting his brother and sister-in-law, Kuya Rhyan and Ate Raquel centers on Garcia's brother's distressed reaction to his sister's pregnancy news which followed only a day after what had been his joyous wedding. The events of Rochelle and Racquel, the objects of Garcia's mother's charity, shadow and dominate most of the show, along with Garcia's deep loathing towards the men who got his sisters pregnant. One of the men is obviously referred to in Raquel in the Shadow of an Imbecile; the other alluded to in The Brainless Murderer. The men loom in the corner of Under the Watchful Eyes while Garcia's self-portrait sits on the opposite side holding a double-edged sword, a biblical reference to the word of God. The importance of faith in these events that have cast such a feeling of vulnerability to Garcia, understandably feeling prey to his emotions, is echoed in his Prayer Request of a Weak Man.
The exhibition title 'Under the Watchful Eyes', taken from the title of the largest work in the exhibition, originally referred to a divine being overlooking these events and, simultaneously, the judgmental perceptions of others to what had happened. Yet, the title takes new meaning in the recent death of Garcia's father, who passed away shortly after the works for the show were completed. It perhaps movingly bookends a conclusion in this particular chapter of troubling events in Garcia's life.
Undeniably, the weight of such severe family circumstances Garcia finds himself in weighs heavily on the works. Who would want to own something filled with so much personal tragedy? Would it be so sadistic to purchase and display such a memento of events that are so obviously deeply painful to the artist?
Yet, if art is like a journal as Garcia says, there is something very precious then about owning what amounts to a page from the artist's diary and one so specially invested in by the artist. It is rare to find works these days with such a fervent personal connection to actual events in the artist's life. The impulsive painting process has certainly been a therapeutic one for Garcia, the transference of emotions done through the very physical sensation of daubing here, there, anywhere and everywhere. There is an evident amount of gratification in expelling the hurt, the demons, the confusion and the sadness.
Yet, there are still some few last stages of this progression of healing being completed. The works have entered the realm of the commercial world. They are now exhibited in a gallery – ready to be sold off and shipped to its new proprietors, who will own not only a part of the artist's experience but, with such inundation of the artist's inner self, also in a sense a part of his soul. As Garcia lets go of these works and they go into the homes of the appreciative and enlightened, perhaps he may find the cathartic release and the prayed-for strength that he has greatly longed for and that he so much deserves.
2nd solo exhibition of Mark Andy Garcia
7-27 February 2009
Art is like a journal
By Clarissa Chikiamco
Art is like a journal, Mark Andy Garcia once said. If it is a journal, the selected works in this exhibition script the startling, tumultuous past year Garcia has had. The unusual succession of events that have unfolded in Garcia's life within close proximity to one other has placed the artist squarely in an overwhelming test of his disposition. Briefly, the story of this episode of Garcia's life is this:
Rochelle and Raquel, Garcia's two younger sisters at nineteen and seventeen years old (both single and still in school), wound up with overlapping unplanned pregnancies. His older brother, Rhyan, got married but, within a month, forlornly had to leave his pregnant wife behind to work in Taiwan for much needed finances. In addition, the kidneys of Garcia's father stopped functioning and regular (and expensive) dialysis sessions became necessary. And like many mothers who become the family's resilient pillar in times of crisis, Garcia's mother has more than dutifully stepped up to her task as the caring, loving wife and mother who sources her strength from places of unplumbed depths.
Now, Garcia, the second of the four children, is amidst and in between all of this.
While seemingly aloof in manner should one meet him in person, Garcia's composed exterior veil a tempest beneath. The furor and confusion that Garcia rightly feels for all these occurrences is directly seen and felt in these exhibition's works. The works were each created quickly and unplanned in a torrential flood of feeling – in the need to suddenly discharge these hot flashes of intense emotion and moments of great duress. Grief, anger, despair, sympathy and bewilderment are bared in Garcia's childlike brash slashing strokes and in the impetuous scribbled phrases found all over his paintings. His selection of damp browns, purples and greens further insinuate the artist's brooding and foreboding mood.
Focusing on Garcia's mother are the works Charity, Sorrow, My Mother and She's Always There. They, in some sense, pay tribute to her vigor, her steadfastness and indeed her anguish as well, as Garcia perceives it. Depicting his brother and sister-in-law, Kuya Rhyan and Ate Raquel centers on Garcia's brother's distressed reaction to his sister's pregnancy news which followed only a day after what had been his joyous wedding. The events of Rochelle and Racquel, the objects of Garcia's mother's charity, shadow and dominate most of the show, along with Garcia's deep loathing towards the men who got his sisters pregnant. One of the men is obviously referred to in Raquel in the Shadow of an Imbecile; the other alluded to in The Brainless Murderer. The men loom in the corner of Under the Watchful Eyes while Garcia's self-portrait sits on the opposite side holding a double-edged sword, a biblical reference to the word of God. The importance of faith in these events that have cast such a feeling of vulnerability to Garcia, understandably feeling prey to his emotions, is echoed in his Prayer Request of a Weak Man.
The exhibition title 'Under the Watchful Eyes', taken from the title of the largest work in the exhibition, originally referred to a divine being overlooking these events and, simultaneously, the judgmental perceptions of others to what had happened. Yet, the title takes new meaning in the recent death of Garcia's father, who passed away shortly after the works for the show were completed. It perhaps movingly bookends a conclusion in this particular chapter of troubling events in Garcia's life.
Undeniably, the weight of such severe family circumstances Garcia finds himself in weighs heavily on the works. Who would want to own something filled with so much personal tragedy? Would it be so sadistic to purchase and display such a memento of events that are so obviously deeply painful to the artist?
Yet, if art is like a journal as Garcia says, there is something very precious then about owning what amounts to a page from the artist's diary and one so specially invested in by the artist. It is rare to find works these days with such a fervent personal connection to actual events in the artist's life. The impulsive painting process has certainly been a therapeutic one for Garcia, the transference of emotions done through the very physical sensation of daubing here, there, anywhere and everywhere. There is an evident amount of gratification in expelling the hurt, the demons, the confusion and the sadness.
Yet, there are still some few last stages of this progression of healing being completed. The works have entered the realm of the commercial world. They are now exhibited in a gallery – ready to be sold off and shipped to its new proprietors, who will own not only a part of the artist's experience but, with such inundation of the artist's inner self, also in a sense a part of his soul. As Garcia lets go of these works and they go into the homes of the appreciative and enlightened, perhaps he may find the cathartic release and the prayed-for strength that he has greatly longed for and that he so much deserves.
THE DISTANCE BETWEEN COLOR AND LIGHT
Marc Gaba
The Distance Between Color and Light
10 February - 11 March 2009
Simultaneously buoyant and serious, Marc Gaba's paintings in The Distance Between Color and Light were prompted by the challenge of translating pop music into visual spatialities, taking the greater part of such translation as an operation of discerning color, volume and tone. The paintings invent and perform a language of the structural instant.
While refusing the use of human faces as symbols of culture, Gaba explores the fascinations of popular culture (color, spectacle, power, love, excess), to build new images discovered through the act of painting itself.
The Distance Between Color and Light opens on February 10 and will run till March 11.
Mag:net High Street is located at
Friday, February 6, 2009
PHILIPPINE ASSOCIATION OF PRINTMAKERS LECTURE/WORKSHOP
The Philippine Association of Printmakers announces schedule of lecture and workshop.The PAP in its four decades of existence continues to bring art to the people with its multi-original prints, exhibiting and holding workshops to promote the art form and subsequently to democratize art. It was founded in 1968 through the pioneering efforts of Manuel Rodriguez, Sr., along with Adiel Arevalo and other printmakers he mentored. It has since become the prime mover of graphic arts in the country. For almost forty years, the association has devoted itself to the promotion of printmaking and bringing art to the people.
The Philippine Association of Printmakers announces its schedule of lecture and workshop:
February 14, 2009, Saturday – 2:00 pm
FREE Lecture-demo on Printmaking
Learn basic information about printmaking as an art form and see how fine prints are made. The lecture includes powerpoint presentation by Ambie Abaño, video showing and actual demonstration by Benjie Cabrera.
February 21 to April 4, 2009
Every Saturdays from 9:00am to 1:00pm
Hands-on Workshop on Collagraph and Etching
An 8-session hands-on workshop on collagraph and etching to be conducted by Jess Flores, noted etcher, and resource person in PAP traveling workshops. Learn how to make multiple originals of your very own designs in two different techniques and explore other possibilities in printing.
Workshop Fee: Php 4,600.00 inclusive of materials
All activities shall be held at the PAP workshop studio located behind the Folk Arts Theatre in CCP Complex, Pasay City. For inquiries, please text or call 0917- 822-7682 / 09167901769 or email pinoy.printmakers@ yahoo.com
Thursday, February 5, 2009
MONOTONOUS 3
In the chaotic wail and gape of life, there is a need for the soul to stand still, to find space for the mind to breathe, to de-center in order to be centered. Amidst the split-second conversations and the numerous blaring obligations where we share ourselves in the spectrum of people and things, pockets of solace are sparse and far in between. It is in creating them ourselves that they begin to exist.
This is what Allain Hablo does. In his third solo exhibition, Hablo’s 25 mixed media works hint towards the title of his show. Monotonous 3 is an extension of Hablo's two previous one-man exhibitions that tote similar aesthetic approaches and principles. Through his monochrome paintings, Hablo shares what his creative practice provides him with-- a place where he is able to transcend the earthly pleasures and pains of this world.
Though known for his figurative works, Hablo prefers to engage in the abstract realm of painting, receiving a sort of self-therapy through the technique. Self-therapy is essential in living in this world, Hablo claims. With the complexities of man and his constant self-destruction, the act of self-healing is crucial for survival. Hablo’s paintings are his mind maps of his train of thought, sentiment and emotion, rooted in the cathartic nature of art.
Hailing from
From the contemplative nature of his works emanates a sense of poetry where the appropriation of elements is handled with careful purpose-- there is nothing wasted or purely accidental in Hablo's art. Only the steady presence of himself.
Opening at the
BULAN
"Bulan", recent works by Roberto Acosta and Katti Sta. Ana, opens on February 7 at 5 p.m. at Britania Art Projects. Working on materials from the earth, Acosta and Sta. Ana depict images of the earth: the moon, the sun, mountains, trees, birds and people, in poetic narratives.
Roberto Acosta, a professor of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines Baguio, studied terracotta sculpture at the Unibersidad Veracruzana in Xalapa, Mexico. An avid mountaineer, picturesque scenes from his days of walking the Cordillera are recurrent in his sculptures. These are molded on the surface of the human forms, using engraving and pastillaje techniques.
Katti Sta. Ana, meanwhile, known for her mixed media assemblage of biographical travelogue pieces and juxtaposed feminine icons, returns to oil painting; this time on recycled flour bag-canvases, in similar story-like fashion reminiscent of her more serious picture book illustrations. Katti is a Cultural Center of the Philippines' 13 Artists Awardee and Fine Arts lecturer at the Ateneo de Manila University.
"Bulan" will run from February 7 to 28 at Britania Art Projects, Tesoro Corner Complex, #14 New York Ave. corner Sgt. Catolos St., Brgy Immaculate Conception, Cubao, Quezon City. Tel. 414-7446.
Roberto Acosta, a professor of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines Baguio, studied terracotta sculpture at the Unibersidad Veracruzana in Xalapa, Mexico. An avid mountaineer, picturesque scenes from his days of walking the Cordillera are recurrent in his sculptures. These are molded on the surface of the human forms, using engraving and pastillaje techniques.
Katti Sta. Ana, meanwhile, known for her mixed media assemblage of biographical travelogue pieces and juxtaposed feminine icons, returns to oil painting; this time on recycled flour bag-canvases, in similar story-like fashion reminiscent of her more serious picture book illustrations. Katti is a Cultural Center of the Philippines' 13 Artists Awardee and Fine Arts lecturer at the Ateneo de Manila University.
"Bulan" will run from February 7 to 28 at Britania Art Projects, Tesoro Corner Complex, #14 New York Ave. corner Sgt. Catolos St., Brgy Immaculate Conception, Cubao, Quezon City. Tel. 414-7446.
TATTOOED HEART
Tattooed Heart, agitates the hackneyed symbolisms of tattoo and heart. Moving on with the pass inklings of the tattooed heart, and through doting questions to begin an end of punctures and likes. Poklong Anading goes into questioning tattoo and heart as processes of art making - its permanence and the meandering channels of skills and aesthetics.
Anading progresses his works for this series delving into rhetorics on the tradition of tattoo, dating back from the primeval epoch of seeing things through drawing, marking walls as remnants of memories and documenting things as believed and seen to be there, whereas tattoo evolves through time, from skills and aesthetics intervened through drawing techniques, still such figures, some texts and symbols, remain permanent, on the medium, skin as such. While the heart, for Anading talks about the disfigured leanings of heart as an abstract object putting emotions aside.
How abstract can permanence be? Anading stresses his point into his questions on drawing as a permanent thing to document the actuality of objects, capturing precise and fixed moments, and the heart in itself is an abstraction - that it never was the shape of the heart as it is known and believed, trapped there somewhere, in this kind of trap for the artist, is the willingness of the artist's hand to accomplish an art through his techniques and skill, and not driven by hormonal emotions and psychosis.
The artist mends the faults and folds of the tracing paper being its fixed and final medium, without transfers, at the same time trapping actual shapes and applying actual color - exploring the whole fault line to test his capabilities of keeping the photograpic reality and actuality of capturing what is believed to be presently folding and crumpling. The method imposed on is illogical to use the mind and heart on the process, Anading delves into the random selection of the hand itself - its skill, capabilities, and acquired technique of rendering things into their destinations.
Crumpled things, what is believed to be such is a rejection, a disliked work, yet, a beginning to this end works for Anading. Pieces of thrown-aways can inevitably sever the formal art. We are still left in rhetoric.
Tattooed Heart will be on view until March 5.
Mag:net Gallery is located at 335 Agcor Building,
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
EPIFANIE : MANIFESTATIONS OF THE SACRED
Encountering the Sacred with Duddley Diaz
Tuscany-based Filipino sculptor Duddley Diaz brings to Manila his latest works in an exhibition entitled Epifanie: Manifestations of the Sacred on 7 February at Galleria Duemila. The show features recent sculptures of deities and goddesses produced in the artist's atelier in Italy.
Epifanie presents Diaz's new collection of relief and round sculptures of goddesses, ranging from life-size works to smaller pieces set in jewelry. Working in traditional media such as wood, ebony, ox bone, and bronze, the sculptures are modelled through the artist's distinct carving technique: chipped to reveal irregularly contoured figures beneath. The textures testify to the way Diaz deviates from the traditional ways in which icons and statues are produced—painstakingly rounded, polished, and painted over with several layers—and instead imbues them with forms more elemental and essential. The artist's vivid palette likewise add to the primal power of the works: pristine primary colors stain the surface while a gilded veneer covers surfaces in darker hues. Also exquisite are the smaller sculptures produced as jewelry pieces.
To view Diaz's works is to encounter the sacred in a new light: traditional deities are represented, while icons of foreign provenance are appropriated and probed for parallelisms with Philippine culture. This is evident in the way the artist draws on a diverse range of iconographies for his images: from the Celtic goddess Epona and Green goddess Demeter to pre-colonial Filipino images, such as references to the manunggul jar and images of Haliya and Meybuyan, from images of owls and lizards and references to the Virgin Mary, as the works Theotokos (Mother of God) 1 and 2 indicate. Diaz also makes extensive use of religious symbolism in his choice of material, color, and iconography. Wood, for instance, is a material is rich in historical reference to both Christianity and animist beliefs.
In Epifanie, Diaz presents for the first time in the Philippines his representations of Epona: a goddess astride a horse, the cult worship of whom penetrated the Roman pantheon of deities. The artist started to take an interest in the iconography of Epona's images around three years ago during a trip to the United Kingdom, and after encountering more of the subject in Rome and Venice. Diaz draws comparisons between Epona and later representations of Christ, noting the iconographic shift from pagan to Christian in a span of centuries.
The artist's interest in the subject of goddesses indicates his preference for representing the maternal as powerful, and his implied deviance from traditional images of a male-centric conceptions of God. While most of his works are representations of female deities, other works such as the Awakening of a Young God (depicting a kouros, a form of Greek archaic sculpture) are rendered in androgynous, almost feminine features.
Duddley Diaz studied at the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts and at the Schools of Painting and Sculpture at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, Italy. He was the recipient of a Freeman Full Fellowship Grant at Vermont Studio Center in the United States in 1998. Metrobank Foundation gave him the Grand Prize for Sculpture Achievement Award in 2005. As part of the Centennial celebration of the University of the Philippines last year, he was given the International Achievement Award by the Alumni Association.
The exhibit opens at 4 pm with performances by tenor Francisco Aseniero Jr., who studied Voice under Prof. Aurelio Estanislao of the University of the Philippines, Prof. Hana Ludwig of Hochschuele Mozartueum in Salzburg, Austria, and John Lester of the United States; pianist John Florencio, a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music under Peggy Salkind; and accomplished singer and actress Stephanie Reese.
Epifanie: Manifestations of the Sacred runs from 7 February to 3 March at Galleria Duemila, 210 Loring Street, Pasay City, Metro Manila. For inquiries, contact the gallery at (632) 831-9990, telefax (632) 833-9815, email: duemila@mydestiny.net, website: www.galleriaduemila.com.
Tuscany-based Filipino sculptor Duddley Diaz brings to Manila his latest works in an exhibition entitled Epifanie: Manifestations of the Sacred on 7 February at Galleria Duemila. The show features recent sculptures of deities and goddesses produced in the artist's atelier in Italy.
Epifanie presents Diaz's new collection of relief and round sculptures of goddesses, ranging from life-size works to smaller pieces set in jewelry. Working in traditional media such as wood, ebony, ox bone, and bronze, the sculptures are modelled through the artist's distinct carving technique: chipped to reveal irregularly contoured figures beneath. The textures testify to the way Diaz deviates from the traditional ways in which icons and statues are produced—painstakingly rounded, polished, and painted over with several layers—and instead imbues them with forms more elemental and essential. The artist's vivid palette likewise add to the primal power of the works: pristine primary colors stain the surface while a gilded veneer covers surfaces in darker hues. Also exquisite are the smaller sculptures produced as jewelry pieces.
To view Diaz's works is to encounter the sacred in a new light: traditional deities are represented, while icons of foreign provenance are appropriated and probed for parallelisms with Philippine culture. This is evident in the way the artist draws on a diverse range of iconographies for his images: from the Celtic goddess Epona and Green goddess Demeter to pre-colonial Filipino images, such as references to the manunggul jar and images of Haliya and Meybuyan, from images of owls and lizards and references to the Virgin Mary, as the works Theotokos (Mother of God) 1 and 2 indicate. Diaz also makes extensive use of religious symbolism in his choice of material, color, and iconography. Wood, for instance, is a material is rich in historical reference to both Christianity and animist beliefs.
In Epifanie, Diaz presents for the first time in the Philippines his representations of Epona: a goddess astride a horse, the cult worship of whom penetrated the Roman pantheon of deities. The artist started to take an interest in the iconography of Epona's images around three years ago during a trip to the United Kingdom, and after encountering more of the subject in Rome and Venice. Diaz draws comparisons between Epona and later representations of Christ, noting the iconographic shift from pagan to Christian in a span of centuries.
The artist's interest in the subject of goddesses indicates his preference for representing the maternal as powerful, and his implied deviance from traditional images of a male-centric conceptions of God. While most of his works are representations of female deities, other works such as the Awakening of a Young God (depicting a kouros, a form of Greek archaic sculpture) are rendered in androgynous, almost feminine features.
Duddley Diaz studied at the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts and at the Schools of Painting and Sculpture at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, Italy. He was the recipient of a Freeman Full Fellowship Grant at Vermont Studio Center in the United States in 1998. Metrobank Foundation gave him the Grand Prize for Sculpture Achievement Award in 2005. As part of the Centennial celebration of the University of the Philippines last year, he was given the International Achievement Award by the Alumni Association.
The exhibit opens at 4 pm with performances by tenor Francisco Aseniero Jr., who studied Voice under Prof. Aurelio Estanislao of the University of the Philippines, Prof. Hana Ludwig of Hochschuele Mozartueum in Salzburg, Austria, and John Lester of the United States; pianist John Florencio, a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music under Peggy Salkind; and accomplished singer and actress Stephanie Reese.
Epifanie: Manifestations of the Sacred runs from 7 February to 3 March at Galleria Duemila, 210 Loring Street, Pasay City, Metro Manila. For inquiries, contact the gallery at (632) 831-9990, telefax (632) 833-9815, email: duemila@mydestiny.net, website: www.galleriaduemila.com.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
ARTERIES AND EXCAVATION
"Arteries and Excavation"
Recent Sculptures in stone, glass and metal
by
Mervy Pueblo & Noell EL Farol
February 5, Thursday, 6 pm.
Art Informal,
Telephone 725.8518
Monday, February 2, 2009
MONUMENTAL : NEW WORKS BY ARTURO LUZ
Monumental: New Works by Arturo Luz
Public sculptures and paintings
by one of the leading modernists
of his generation
3 February - June 2009
Greenbelt ArtPark proudly presents the works of National Artist Arturo Luz in Monumental, an exhibition of new sculptures, which opens on 3 February 2009 at the Ayala Museum and at Greenbelt Park.
As one of the leading modernists of his generation, Arturo Luz was named National Artist in 1997. His works had inspired and influenced the next generation of artists working on minimalism and non-objectivism.
Monumental: New Works by Arturo Luz features several large-scale abstract sculptures that are variations on or revisits of Luz’s past themes—the celebration circus performers of the 1960s, the taut anito figures in the early 1970s, and the origami-inspired constructs of the late 1970s.
All the hallmarks of his artistic oeuvre—elegant linearity, seamless design, and minimal color—are prominent and tangible in his three-dimensional work. Aside from the architectonic scale evident in the new work are the bright colors of yellow, red, orange, and blue. Instead of the expected black, white, gray or raw state of the material, the new sculptures were designed to stand out in their environment, urban and contemporary or rural and natural. These works were conceived not only for the private residence or museum galleries but also for the public spaces now popular in the new millennium—expansive lobbies, busy malls, and office complexes in suburban settings. These public sculptures, though essentially non-utilitarian, define and identify the spaces they occupy and the landscapes they create.
Greenbelt 5, the latest development marking Greenbelt as the premium lifestyle center in the Philippines, has played host to various centerpiece events celebrating world-class artistry, most notably last year’s Bravo Filipino series, the brainchild of Ayala Group of Companies chairman emeritus Jaime Zobel de Ayala. Monumental is envisioned as the first in a series of public art exhibitions to be organized by Greenbelt, which aims to make art more accessible to the public and to generate greater awareness of the works of world-class Filipino artists.
Monumental will run until 29 March 2009 at Ayala Museum and until June 2009 at Greenbelt Park.
For details and inquiries on this exhibition, please call 757-7117 to 21 local 28.
Ayala Museum is located at the corner of Makati Avenue and De la Rosa Street, Greenbelt Park, Makati City.
Public sculptures and paintings
by one of the leading modernists
of his generation
3 February - June 2009
Greenbelt ArtPark proudly presents the works of National Artist Arturo Luz in Monumental, an exhibition of new sculptures, which opens on 3 February 2009 at the Ayala Museum and at Greenbelt Park.
As one of the leading modernists of his generation, Arturo Luz was named National Artist in 1997. His works had inspired and influenced the next generation of artists working on minimalism and non-objectivism.
Monumental: New Works by Arturo Luz features several large-scale abstract sculptures that are variations on or revisits of Luz’s past themes—the celebration circus performers of the 1960s, the taut anito figures in the early 1970s, and the origami-inspired constructs of the late 1970s.
All the hallmarks of his artistic oeuvre—elegant linearity, seamless design, and minimal color—are prominent and tangible in his three-dimensional work. Aside from the architectonic scale evident in the new work are the bright colors of yellow, red, orange, and blue. Instead of the expected black, white, gray or raw state of the material, the new sculptures were designed to stand out in their environment, urban and contemporary or rural and natural. These works were conceived not only for the private residence or museum galleries but also for the public spaces now popular in the new millennium—expansive lobbies, busy malls, and office complexes in suburban settings. These public sculptures, though essentially non-utilitarian, define and identify the spaces they occupy and the landscapes they create.
Greenbelt 5, the latest development marking Greenbelt as the premium lifestyle center in the Philippines, has played host to various centerpiece events celebrating world-class artistry, most notably last year’s Bravo Filipino series, the brainchild of Ayala Group of Companies chairman emeritus Jaime Zobel de Ayala. Monumental is envisioned as the first in a series of public art exhibitions to be organized by Greenbelt, which aims to make art more accessible to the public and to generate greater awareness of the works of world-class Filipino artists.
Monumental will run until 29 March 2009 at Ayala Museum and until June 2009 at Greenbelt Park.
For details and inquiries on this exhibition, please call 757-7117 to 21 local 28.
Ayala Museum is located at the corner of Makati Avenue and De la Rosa Street, Greenbelt Park, Makati City.
ODE TO A BEAUTIFUL NUDE
ODE TO A BEAUTIFUL NUDE
The nude is every painter's exercise, a master's valuable series. It is where personal style and sensibility become stark – testing a painter's commitment to practice, rooting him or her to craft which is an essential mark of serious aesthetics. The breadth and depth of variety and potential of the appropriated and actual woman is best expounded in the female nude. In Ode to a beautiful nude, Sequi Cu Unjieng gently inspects and celebrates this puzzle of womanhood, this enigma of an empire. Ode to a beautiful nude is Sequi speaking as a woman about women.
The beauty of the woman is exuded in the austere elements that make up each frame of the series. The image of Sequi's women is without pomp, sans brash surfaces of social identity. In her aim to strip the woman of anything that would possibly lead to a superficial grasp, Sequi produces an expanse of identity. Her nudes perform the various layers of the woman, somewhat becoming sites where at one time or another, our own faces emerge from Sequi's faceless figures.
Each nude is not set apart by particular physical features but through a vibe, a pose, or a gesture that would give away the subject's significant trait. Sequi chooses to depict the anonymous women as they walk away, confront, mingle and dream. Ode to a beautiful nude astutely identifies such layers that women encompass – at times extremes, at best complementary. The woman teeters and swings through ends and absolutes so naturally that binaries are cancelled out – the woman is certain particulars (regality, ferocity, independence, loyalty, joie de vivre, calculating) at the same a seamless whole. As much as the ambivalence of the woman is found in the lack of features of Sequi's nudes, the confidence of her lines and the intentionally limited color range of the artist's palette celebrate the severer, and more controlled side of the woman.
The identities of the sitters are unknown. In this ambiguity, the nudes become one consistent woman in every frame – and not. They are figures that become the collective woman – women – and the individual woman. As they are stripped of any indication of roles – mother, daughter, friend, lover, worker, martyr, kontrabida – what is magnified is the intersection of many contradictory qualities in every woman.
Ode to a beautiful nude is Sequi's first solo exhibition. She remakes what is closest to her, making every vibe of the sitter operate on an intuitive pull. In such modest aesthetics, Sequi manages to produce a visual vocabulary of women that is touching and intimate. Ode to a beautiful nude is a tribute to all women and the multitudes that they contain.
SWING
Swing
2 February 2009
Blanc Art Space
Stimulated by the idea of repetitive motions, of the rollicking movement of back and forth and back and forth, Swing, Jigger Cruz’s first solo exhibition, revolves around geometric translations of rhythmic swaying gestures. The works, a scuffle of textures and forms that situate well within similar past works of Cruz, are born from his exercises of the composition of cyclical gesticulations.
Cruz paints an assemblage of recognizable objects and obscure shapes which interlace, envelope and unfurl within one another. Simultaneously tempered and fueled by scientific-based inspired titles, elements such as satellite disks, bicycle wheels, coiling striped horns and sprays of particles are within these shuffling vortexes of the nonsensical. The focus, aided by a fairly subdued palette, turns to configuration which leads the lingering visual experience into its stormy yet measured rocking. Yet like the childhood playground favorite the exhibition name alludes to, the paintings are fittingly done in a sport and spirit of frolic by which viewers’ roving eyes can take in coy pleasure.
- Clarissa Chikiamco
Swing will open on Monday, 6PM, February 2, 2009 at blanc
Sunday, February 1, 2009
LUCKY ME
Kaida Gallery welcomes the Chinese New Year with
Lucky Me
E.J. Cabangon's 7th one-man exhibition
1 - 18 February 2009
Kaida Gallery marks the upcoming Chinese New Year celebrations with Lucky Me, E.J. Cabangon's 7th one-man show of photorealistic oil-on-canvas paintings of Chinese feng-shui figurines.
Exquisitely rendered in fine detail and vivid colors, the paintings in the exhibition depict various figurines used to celebrate the Chinese New Year: figurines of dragons, foo dogs, the three wise men of ancient Chinese folklore, and animal signs of the Chinese lunar calendar. Captured in Cabangon's signature painting technique, where minute details are faithfully reproduced and captured as if on film, the two-dimensional figurines seem to take on a life on their own, animated by the artist's realistic execution of form.
The exhibition derives its title from a local brand of instant noodles popular among the masses. It is also a reference to the strong associations and aspirations for good luck attributed to feng shui. The phrase Lucky Me thus alludes to both the Filipino trait of perseverance and flexibility in hard and desperate times, and the popular adherence to world views or beliefs on how to change one's present status—feng shui being among the most popular forms in the country at present.
The show is a tribute to the power of traditional symbolism and beliefs in giving guidance and meaning for many people. The image of the dragon, for instance, is said to be a bearer of good luck, while the image of the three wise men (Fuk, Luk, and Sau) in Chinese folklore manifestations of longevity, prosperity, and power.
“Life can sometimes be confusing, chaotic, or deranged, so we tend to have faith in something that is visible to our senses even if an individual doesn't fully understand it,” the artist says in a statement.
Cabangon also infuses contemporary Filipino humor into his images of traditional Chinese symbols. The artist entitles his paintings of foo dogs, popularly believed to serve as symbolic guardians on one's property from bad spirits, as Bantay and Ang Jowa ni Bantay, making use of a common Filipino name for male pet dogs and local slang term for spouse or partner. Such intentional renaming of images brings traditional Chinese images closer to popular Filipino culture.
Lucky Me opens on February 1 (Sunday), 6 p.m., at Kaida Gallery, located at the 2nd Floor, GFO Building, 122 Kamuning Road, Quezon City, Philippines 1102. The show runs until the 18th of February 2009. For inquiries, please call (632) 4144777 or write info@kaidagallery.com.
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