Tag: visual arts

Home » visual arts
Post

Kikik Kollektive’s Panayanon mural is on view at Queensland art gallery

The Ilonggo art group Kikik Kollektive has notched a milestone at the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art of the Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA) with a mural that shines a light on Panayanon history and culture. Measuring 7.5 meters by 25 meters, the mural titled “Bones of Our Elders” (or “Tul-an...

Post

The flow from Mount Banahaw to the Venice Biennale

The inactive volcano that is Mount Banahaw functions in our Philippine social life in different ways: a natural fortress against tropical cyclones from the Pacific, the dwelling place of mystical, and a protected forest reserve. This mountain solidifies its enchanting presence in the heart of the Philippine Pavilion at the Venice Biennale with the exhibition Sa...

Post

Sea people and their buoyant ontology

Who are the sea people? What does it mean for people to embody the vastness of the sea? What happens when the sea’s massiveness measures up with the collectivity of the people?  I view these questions as urgent with the return of Jon Cuyson to Vargas Museum of the University of the Philippines Diliman with Taong...

Post

Grayscale pessimism

If drawings lend themselves to the world as an artistic medium for one to experience discovery, an insight drawn from the radically hopeful imagination of John Berger, the drawings of the artist Lyra Garcellano in her just-concluded show at Finale Art File, titled Land, Labor, Life: Tracing ‘Progress’ in Selected Notes, expresses political despair, which,...

Post

Discovering Clyfford Still, bold, brave, pioneering abstract expressionist

DENVER, COLORADO—As a fine arts graduate, I must confess that it was my first time to hear Clyfford Still’s name. Yes, I know the stalwarts of the Abstract Expressionist movement from Jackson Pollock to Mark Rothko to Helen Frankenthaler. But Still escaped my radar. And yet here he was, spoken with such ardor and respect...

Post

Colliding scapes of happiness

What does hell mean in relation to heaven and the earth? Why do we visualize hell when our lives have been dominated by Christian values, believing that one’s life on earth must lead us to heaven? Does heaven continue to hold a profound meaning despite how life on earth has been mostly described as hell? ...

Post

Wood sculptors highlight an uncommon and vanishing resource

ILOILO CITY—Ilonggo artists made big waves in the 2023 iteration of the Philippine Art Awards. Of the five winners from the Visayas, four are Iloilo-based, including the brothers Tyrone Dave and Jun Orland Espinosa. Tyrone’s work, Family Tree (5 x 6 feet, inlay on wood), is an ode. “The importance of the family is the main...

Post

Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel exhibit opens in Manila

The painted scenes on the ceiling of the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel have fascinated me since I received the book “Michelangelo & the Pope’s Ceiling” more than a decade ago. A gift from my then future wife, the 384-page paperback by Ross King recounts the four extraordinary years–from 1508 to 1512—that the genius Michelangelo spent producing...

Post

Artist paints tribute to heroes in time for Independence Day

The artist Juanito Torres completed a 58-by-85-inch artwork titled “Parade of Heroes” in time for the Philippines’ celebration of its 125th Independence Day on June 12. The painting shows a gathering of heroes led by Dr. Jose Rizal and Andres Bonifacio in a parade, waving small Philippine flags. It was unveiled in Salcedo Auctions’ “Finer...