Filipino.art.org

CHAOS AND COLOR

This is the place where nightmares and princesses dance together.

In Nemo Aguila’s first one-man exhibition MANSTERS AND PHONY TALES, he decides to delve inside the play zone of his own unconscious, drawing out colorful creatures that have influenced both his past and present life as an artist, and more importantly, as a child; or if you look at them, perhaps, an amusing combination of both.

Within his recent collection of works, the artist transforms characters encountered during his childhood into gruesome things that grew an extra pair of eyes or sharpened teeth, images which are much closer
to the graffiti characters that he had been painting and marking on walls for years now. Nemo comically describes them as “Snow White meets Freddie Krueger” or “Batibot gone wrong” instances. This may be a simple symbolism for the bridging of two timelines in his life, of innocence and the slow destruction of it, and basically the realization that as we grow older, these fairy tales, as we knew them, are nothing but timeless, classic tales bastardized by Disney and the deception of worldwide consumerism.

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For Bea Alcala, Francis Commeyne, Cian Dayrit, Paola Germar, Lou Lim, Martin De Mesa, Archie Oclos, Caroline Ongpin, Mark Sanchez, Louie Talents and Marija Vicente, the group exhibit Xing E. Jacinto, is probably their last group show together as new graduates of the UP College of Fine Arts, located at E. Jacinto St. of the Diliman campus.

Encouraged and guided to pursue their individual visions, their works, which come in a plethora of approaches and media, occupy all dimensions of the proverbial cubic space of the modern art gallery. Consider these ruminations as overarching themes: anxiety, the body, institutional critique, selfhood meets the world, the model and archetypes.

As act, Xing E. Jacinto is transitionary in the same manner that crossing a street is one of the horrors of early childhood – what with the distraction of intersecting traffic, the cacophony, strange smells, of people, engine and other modes of transit – the very foreign-ness of every thing.

Transitions are never comforting. With amniotic fluid expelled from the lungs, the newborn takes its very first breath, and squeals in distress, awakened and banished from the peace and contentment of the womb, with a slap on the butt. This narrative may well describe the tentative internal state of these artists, but it hardly reflects the exuberance in and of their works; exuberance, which to poet/artist William Blake, is beauty.

Curated by Leo Abaya, Xing E. Jacinto will open at Tin-aw Art Gallery, Upper Ground Floor of Somerset Olympia, Makati Avenue, on 3 June 2011, with opening reception at 6 p.m.

Ysobel Art Gallery is the newest gallery in Serendra in Bonifacio High Street, They will be having their first group exhibition to be held on May 21.

“10″ at Ysobel Art Gallery Serendra

Ysobel Art Gallery exhibits 10 on May 21, 2011. With recent works by Rene Cuvos, Jaylenver Peñafiel, Teofilo Alagao, Joselito Jandayan, Heraldo Corpus, Jake Catah, Martin Honasan, Niño Hernandez, Lirio Salvador and Ian Valladarez, Ysobel Art Gallery opens its doors for the unveiling of its first group exhibition.

Having earned their laurels in various local and international competitions, these ten emerging artists will showcase the diversity in form, technique and sensibilities that the gallery wants to present to the art-going public. True to the mystical representation of the number 10 in literature and the arts, a well-rounded sampling of Honasan’s experimental forays into acrylics, Catah’s fauvist saturations of color, Corpus’ deviation from grayscale, Hernandez’ hybridized abstractions, Cuvos’ harlequinesque characters, Peñafiel’s puzzle portraits and the biting commentary of works on canvas by Jandayan and Alagao will be displayed along with metal sculptural assemblages by Salvador and the continuous wire forms of Valladarez.

Ysobel Art Gallery is located at the second floor of Serendra, Bonifacio High Street, Bonifacio Global City. Artists’ Reception is on May 21, Saturday, at six o’clock in the evening. 10 will run until June 9, 2011. Call or text +639285071117 and email mark.sancheztiongco@gmail.com for details.

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Manila Contemporary, in partnership with Tin-Aw Art Management Inc., present

MONUMENTAL
Featuring: Mike Adrao, Plet Bolipata, Elmer Borlongan, Antipas Delotavo, Alfredo Esquillo Jr., Mark Justiniani, Joy Mallari, Ferdie Montemayor, Maya Muñoz, Jose Santos III

Scale has played an important part in Art History representing celestial and religious grandeur, classical love stories as well as the warnings/ memorials of socio-political conflict and violence. This sense of the monumental in Art whether large scale mural or ceiling painting, colossal canvases or public sculpture reflects the marvelous, awe inspiring and powerful qualities of creativity to represent the human experience and provoke emotion and pathos.

Manila Contemporary in collaboration with Tin-aw Art Management presents Monumental, an exhibition that showcases the work of contemporary artists specially commissioned to make use of the expansive gallery space to create contemporary works of epic proportions. Giving a platform to the skill involved in the handling of large surfaces and complex compositional form Mike Adrao, Plet Bolipata, Elmer Borlongan, Antipas Delotavo, Alfredo Esquillo Jr., Mark Justiniani, Joy Mallari, Ferdie Montemayor, Maya Muñoz, Jose Santos III present spectacular new works in the gallery.

Amplifying their current concerns as artists and individuals grand themes unfold across the gallery absorbing personal obsessions, social critique and aesthetique threads of inquiry. These visual stories showcase diverse approaches that incorporate the poetic, comic, tragic and spiritual aspects of Filipino culture to inspire and provoke viewers regarding their social responsibilities as well as triggering a visual delight in the monumental.

Documentation of artworks in progress in the artists’ studio by MM Yu will be exhibited concurrently in the Upstairs Gallery of Manila Contemporary.

Saturday at 6:00pm – May 29 at 7:00pm
Manila Contemporary, Whitespace, 2314 Pasong Tamo Extension, Makati City, Philippines

Event info here http://on.fb.me/jDPmdA

The Main Gallery and the Walkway will feature paintings and installations inspired by European Modernists. This series of works produced by artist Alexander De Moscoso are entitled Peripheral Revisions. The Collector’s Gallery on the other hand, will house Alvin Zafra‘s Daggers of Thought which includes portraits out of bullets and sandpaper. The exhibitions will open this 20 May, Friday .

ARTIST STATEMENTS:

“Peripheral Revisions”
Alexander Moscoso

Art is my platform for personal and social discourse. It is the product of my struggle and discipline in pursuit of transforming thought and energy into material form. My commitment is geared towards the materialization of ideas and transference of energy in this lifetime. Thus, it has been my resolve to create art as part of my daily practice.Initially, Peripheral Revisions is a body of work that explores art history specificities and how it relates to one’s own practice. It first started as a response to the question of how could one make sense and non-sense of art history and its corresponding artifacts, or rather, art as facts?Peripheral Revisions is composed of paintings that will use reproductions of historically significant paintings as its ground. In this way, I will be able to establish a discourse with a particular work of art, examine its structure, as well as attempt at gaining insights on the technical and conceptual momentum and trajectories of its creator.While working on these paintings, I realized that these are not reproductions of the original works being appropriated per se but in the process has become impressions of the appropriated works and an imagining of the state of mind of these artists. Because of this process dynamics, the current works seem to have transcended the realm of reproduction/illustration and has morphed into an original in itself. Other than that, the original intentions of the works being a personal discourse in art history as well as paintings being phenomenological constructs or channels remain the same.Eventually, the trajectory of the body of work has veered towards works of art as vehicles of perception. The discursive nature of Peripheral Revisions zeroes in on paintings, as well as video art installation, as contemporary phenomenological tools i.e. methods to observe and reflect on one’s conscious experience, or even attempt to access the subconscious. The polygons at  the center of the works serve  as demarcations of physical and symbolic space.  The introduction of colored polygons other than black is an additional parameter  I have set to widen the field and likewise as a response to a personal discourse on color theory, art history, politics,philosophy, and psychology which  I encountered while working on the first few works. Furthermore, I realized that this set of work is just a start of a long-term topographical project to map existing art-as-facts and its possible relations. Process-wise, these works are finger painted. I had to forego the use of brushes and experimented with the notion of bypassing any mediating object between the hand and canvas in moving paint.In sum, the works that comprise Peripheral Revisions are accessories to an experience. Its relevance lies not on technical or conceptual techniques and/or art history specific issues but on its capability to give its viewers a window to examine one’s self.

Artist Alexander Moscoso unveils his own version of famous modern artists’ works in his new show “Peripheral Revisions”. Utilizing his bare fingers, Moscoso plays around with famousmodern artists’ works and presents them with colored polygon centers and upside down orientations.  Moscoso’s courageous  play on these works fosters a question on the artworks’ originality and a discussion on art reproduction.The exhibit runs from  20 May to  10 June  2011 at NOVA Gallery, Warehouse 12A, La Fuerza Compound, 2241 Don Chino Roces Ave., Makati City.For more information call 392-7797 or send an electronic mail to gallerynova@gmail.com or visit www.novagallerymanila.com

“Daggers of Thought”
Alvin Zafra

This exhibition is a collection of portraits of known personalities, all of which are victims of gun violence and gun culture. It is a tribute to the pillars of thought and a marker to the violence that persists in history. The portraits were chosen relative to my existence  – Gandhi’snon violence mirrors object/medium’s approach, Lean being a fellow UP student and a leader ofresistance, and Kurt’s craft as a big influence on my musical vocabulary.In this series, icons meet their end via a gunshot; bullet and subject are both resurrected into a new existence which is Art.

Etching bullets against sandpaper, artist Alvin Zafra resurrects influential men in his new show “Daggers of Thought”. Zafra reunites these men  with the  material that has caused their deaths; but this time, these bullets take form as a medium in immortalizing them through a new realm that is Art.

Artist Alvin Zafra brings men back to life in his new show “Daggers of Thought”. The exhibit features portraits of men whose lives were cut short by bullets and gunshots. Zafra however, resurrects these men through the same material as he uses and infuses such in his artmaking.

The exhibit runs from 20 May to 10 June 2011 at NOVA Gallery, Warehouse 12A, La Fuerza Compound, 2241 Don Chino Roces Ave., Makati City.For more information call 392-7797 or send an electronic mail to gallerynova@gmail.com or visit www.novagallerymanila.com.