Beyond Printmaking at the Avellana Gallery

Avellana Art Gallery’s annual printmaking exhibit always provides an opportunity to catch up with the stalwarts of the Philippine Association of Printmakers Inc.  You get a mix of the old hands tweaking the tried and tested, along the craft’s younger practitioners introducing some fresh perspectives.   Beyond Printmaking lives up to its purpose.  It makes us believe in the art form’s vast possibilities, certainly aided by the wonderful way this show has been installed.
In the ground floor, Ambie Abaño and Benjie Torrado Cabrera catch one’s attention first.  Ambie has brought out another edition of her rubbercut faces on spandex, Seeing You Seeing Me 3, an iteration of her 2006 Philip Morris Philippine Art Awards winner.  Her installation, July, stands across it.  Ambie’s second piece hints at a presence, at someone who has just left.  We see imprints on a single wooden chair and footprints on the wooden slats beneath.  Nearby, Benjie’s etched acrylic panels benefit from the mirrors he has provided as backing; they frame and reflect his engravings and turn them into an infinite swirl of patterns.
A flock of Chong Ardivilla’s printed tees hang from the ceiling in the other side of the room, recalling bats in flight.  Inside the ground floor’s red alcove, Anna Austria’s has lit two lanterns made from rice paper printed with female forms.
Pandy Aviado takes over the niche halfway up the stairs to display printed parchment sealed inside clear bottles.  He has arranged them to stand before an assemblage of etchings and found objects.  In the upstairs hallway, Joey Cobcobo’s woodcuts fill up the walls.
I found the most interesting works in the second floor’s main exhibit area, those of Noell El Farol and Angelo Magno.   Noell put together a whole range of pieces.  The ones I liked made use of museum postcards that seemed like they had been splattered with paint, an effect achieved through metallic prints. Angelo’s stood out for the innovative way he showcased his rubbercuts, creating free-standing pieces by attaching them onto metal poles supported by wooden shoe lasts.
Also on view:  Eugene Jarque’s collage on paper, Drifter and a collaborative piece from Buen Abrigo, Dean Africa, and Antares Gomez Bartolome called Lunan.
Beyond Printmaking runs from 14 April to 15 May 2012 at Avellana Art Gallery, 2680 FB Harrison St., Pasay City.  Phone (632) 833-8357 or visit http://www.facebook.com/ AVELLANA-ART-GALLERY

Bliss Market art installation project

Words by Katrina Stuart Santiago

Choosing from the pre-exiting “Dasal” series, one framed image will will be installed in each of the 23 buildings of U.P. Bliss, creating an exhibit that cuts across the 23 different lobbies of the different buildings. That this renders prayer in this form across the structures, but even more so that it is these artworks that will bridge the gap from one building to the next will force the community to move from their own spaces to the next one. Like an unconventional stations of the cross, tied by prayer, tied by art. ***

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30 artists and artist groups gather

for the U.P. Bliss Art Intervention Project

Bliss Market: Exchange in Time | Space of Transience gathers together a diverse set of artists tasked to intervene in U.P. Bliss as space and community, currently in the throes of neglect, constantly being reimagined by memory and nostalgia.  

A project of J Pacena II, Bliss Market takes the central symbol of the old Bliss Mart that used to be grocery and community center of the U.P. Bliss of his childhood. Now just structural ruins, the Bliss Mart is not only memory but also fact: here lies a vestige of a community that could be brought together by common spaces of exchange, both literal and figurative, neighborly and otherwise. That this isn’t true anymore, different as the landscape has become, where childhood leisure has become more about staying in instead of inhabiting the outside, and the individual has rendered community less important, is the current state of U.P. Bliss.

This is the site of the artistic intervention with which the Bliss Market has tasked its 29 participating artists and artist groups. All immersed in the narratives of the past and present of the U.P. Bliss, these artist interventions are premised on an engagement with the community, and a necessarily critical stance about the notions of bliss at this point in time, changing as it is. Envisioned as a breathing art project, Bliss Market will run for two months from May to June 2012, allowing artists to conceptualize projects that will cut across that time frame, and creating venues for the variety of creative interventions from workshops to artist talks, performances and film showings, street art and art installations. Documentation and related events will run at the U.P. Vargas Museum.

 silver

The participating artists are Brian Barrios, Aristotle Pollisco (Gloc-9), Rai Cruz, Mark Salvatus, Alma Quinto, Angelo Magno, Jef Carnay, Kiri Dalena, Nonoy Marcelo, Apol Sta. Maria, Buen Calubayan, John Leonard Puso, Angelo Paolo Martin, Paul De Vera, Carlo Holganza, Don Salubayba, Kirby Roxas, Robert Besana, and J. Pacena II. The participating artist groups are Pilipinas Street Plan, Monochrome, 98B, Print Makers Association of the Philippines, Anino Shadow Play Collective, Komikera, Sipat Lawin Ensemble, Ugat Lahi, Arkisens, UP Dance Company, and Tudla Productions.

Bliss Market: Exchange in Time | Space of Transience runs in two venues. Site-specific projects, workshops and artist talks, will be held at the U.P. Bliss from May to June 23, 2012. A related exhibition will run at the U.P. Vargas Museum from May 17 to June 09, 2012.

This Project is presented with U.P. Vargas Museum, In cooperation with Asia Pacific College and supported by Arts Network Asia and the U.P. BLISS Senior Citizen Achievers Chapter, Inc.

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Philippines Association of Printmakers

For the past four decades, the PAP has brought art to the people with its multi-original prints, and through its exhibitions and workshops that promote the art form and subsequently democratize art. Founded in 1968 through the pioneering efforts of Manuel Rodriguez, Sr., and with Adiel Arevalo and other printmakers he mentored, it has since become the prime mover of graphic arts in the country. For almost 40 years, PAP has devoted itself to the promotion of printmaking and bringing art to the people. Its programs include the continuous training of members, regular exhibitions, annual competitions, outreach workshops and lectures, and hosting of exchange programs with international visiting artists. From its ranks, the Philippines has been represented in international exhibitions, competitions, biennales and triennials. In 2001, it was conferred the Dangal ng Haraya Lifetime Achievement Award for Cultural

Promotions by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.

Masks

Masks give us the privilege of creating layers of identities. These identities still define us but sometimes we cannot simultaneously present them in public. I create masks to create temporal spaces to express fragmented narratives that the public may not be ready to see all the time.


"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." -Oscar Wilde

"I can read you mind"

Rubbercut with chine colle and guache
13.5 x 13.5 inches
2012

Exhibited at the "Beyond Printmaking" show, Avellana Art Gallery, April 14, 2012.