Pinoy Printmakers annual exhibition at the Cultural Center of the Philippines
September 2017
Printmaking has been vital in the act of place-making. The
“making of a place” is when one draws out the many cartographic accents of the
land and of the seas. In marking territories and jotting down paths,
printmaking was used to literally and metaphorically carve out this world via
maps, pamphlets, and other prints that have been churned out throughout the
generations. Changes, demarcations delineations, show that printmaking is
associated with the motions of containing land.
However, nature can never be contained. Though there are
numerous prints about the beauty, the danger, and the splendor of nature,
nature will never be controlled. This year’s exhibition of the latest prints by
members and friends of the Association of Pinoyprintmakers at the Cultural
Center of the Philippines show the many intricacies of nature. Titled
Nature-Nurture, this exhibition posts the question to the participating artists
on the valuation of nature as its own force, as a point of inspiration, as a
focus of struggle. Nature-Nurture is not a dichotomy like two sides of the same
coin. Nature-Nurture is a rallying call on these days of blind abuse of our
environment.
Nature-Nurture showcases the varied points of view from
printmakers of different persuasions: from the florid, to the calm, to the
calamitous. These are works that are extensions of the very impetus of humanity
to render art in the first place which is to make sense of the powers of
nature, from paleolithic cave paintings to grandiloquent immersive landscapes
of Chinese scrolls, to bravura of disasters caught on canvas. Nature has been a
favored subject of many artists as a source of inspiration. Nature has always
been a focal point between humanity and creation in terms of making sense of
our place in this world. Are we nature’s gatekeepers? Are we nature’s
guardians? Are we under nature’s spell? Can we ever control nature’s awesome
incalculable might? Nature has always been the framework in the search for the
sublime.
-Chong Ardivilla
Flight/Plight (Dead birds series)
molded paper, blueprint, rubbercut with chine colle,
size variable, 2017
Dead birds created
from blueprints of planned apartment
building around Metro Manila. The work is a commentary on the change
of the natural landscape and the displacement of their natural habitants due to urbanization and its effect to wild life and
human life.
