FLASH! FIFTEEN FILIPINO ABSTRACTIONISTS

SOCIETY has been exposed to the creation of abstract art since people have existed, but recognizably, there are varying "levels" of abstraction. Depending on the degree of abstraction, the artist has to discover more ingenious ways of conveying that precise concept. At an instance in humans’ early history, cave walls became the canvasses of men and women who drew scenes of hunting, of their flourishing bounty, of race, moment and milieu. Contemporary painters, such as Jackson Pollock, articulated emotions and pure concepts on canvas. Because his work has been inclined to focus around the notion of order within chaos, Pollock is an eminent paradigm. The perception of victory or success in hunting has to be easier to express than the notion of orderly chaos. With more involved "subjects", the form of expression itself has to become flexible. Thus, the significance of abstract art.

In his essay Roots of Diversity in Philippine Contemporary Art, artist/writer/curator Ronald Hilario noted that “The early 1950's saw the triumph of the modernists over the conservatives. Thanks to the efforts of Lyd Arguilla of the Philippine Art Gallery in showcasing the art of the young modernists, abstraction gained a stronger foothold and soon became the dominant style. More informed in the aesthetics of cubism, surrealism, and expressionism, these young artists expanded the concern of Philippine visual arts from style to a broader exploration of the formal elements of visual art. The first non-representational paintings and sculptures appeared at this stage, and were developed to a higher level by the third wave of artists who came in during the 1960's to the 1970's. Some of the more active artists in this period were Vicente Manansala, Napoleon Abueva, Jose Joya, Cesar Legaspi, Arturo Luz, and Fernando Zobel. Texts on abstract art became more available to artists in the 60's. Modernist art theories were introduced and taught in the Philippine Fine Arts Schools by academics and artists such as Rod Paras Perez and Roberto Chabet. Readings of these texts paved the way for a more cerebral approach to art making. Conceptual Art, Minimalism, and Performance Art made their debut in the country. Artists also became more vocal about their works and some published their ideas in art journals such the Philippine Supplement in the 70's. The Marcos regime's patronage of the arts added muscle to many artists' projects. The Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), the centerpiece of the First Lady Imelda Marcos' cultural program, was established and became the home of non-objective art. During the tenure of artist-curators Ray Albano and Roberto Chabet the CCP galleries were sites of numerous abstract art exhibitions and performances. At the forefront of these activities were Ray Albano, Gus Albor, Roberto Chabet, Mars Galang, Ben Maramag, Lee Aguinaldo and David Medalla.”

Modern art has usually been characterized by its inventiveness, and within this parameter, critics have looked to formal innovation to classify artworks in relation to their time, rather than place of origin. The nonrepresentational contemporary art that critics have made canonical was concerned with universal and transcendent aims, or with rendering concepts.

The title implies urgency, not the haphazard approach for art’s sake, but of the manner by which the artwork impacts on the viewer. It is the resultant realization when the message of the abstraction has been deciphered, and in this instant, that dawning comes charging fifteen times over. That ensuing speed, that consequential rush impinging on the cerebral, in a flash engulfs the aficionado.

This exhibition features paintings – significant pieces designed to visually expound important concepts about abstraction and its history in a non-threatening manner copulated with the dynamic relationship between discourses, forms, and styles. From the deceased to the emergent, the artists in this exhibition were all vital to producing the FLASH, a uniquely positioned showcase of Philippine Abstraction.

Ross Capili, Danilo Garcia, Andrew de Guzman, Fitz Herrera, Raul Isidro, Alfredo Liongoren, Sio Montera, J Elizalde Navarro, Eghai Roxas, Hermi Santo, Sherwin Tan, Roy Veneracion, Phililip Victor, Javy Villacin and Nestor Olarte Vinluan.

FLASH! Fifteen Filipino Abstractionists shall be on view starting October 18, 2008 at Galerie Anna, 7th floor, Ramon Magsaysay Center, Roxas Boulevard corner Dr. J. Quintos Street, Manila 1004 Philippines. For more information and queries about the gallery and the exhibition, you can log on to www.galerieanna.com, contact Gallery Manager Mr. Joffrey Baylon at landline number (632) 5679483, or email at info@galerieanna.com.

FLASH! J ELIZALDE NAVARRO

Jeremias (Jerry) Elizalde Navarro (1924 - 1999), National Artist for visual arts, graduated with a Bachelor’s degree of Fine Arts major in Painting at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila. He had represented the Philippines in various artistic events from Brazil, Berne, Czechoslovakia, Japan, Indonesia and the United States. The register of his accomplishments is extensive and his masterpieces ranged prolifically from oils, acrylic, watercolour, sculpture, multi-dimensional and mixed media. He not only had numerous one-man exhibitions but he had also participated simultaneously in countless group exhibitions in the Philippines as well as overseas.

Navarro was an epitome of the versatile quintessential artist with the focused vision, keen foresight and prolific genius that made a mould all of its own. The opulence of his art, its vigor and profundity, makes the loss of its creator take up a superior purpose and influence that flourish in that absence. We conspicuously perceive what was once and what has been; sense short-lived instances hovering from those remains of colours and hues that reach out from his works and canvasses. While infirmity gradually devastate him, his art, meantime took on an unbounded and distinct uniqueness of its own.

FLASH! ROSS CAPILI

ROSS CAPILI studied drafting and ceramics technology at the Philippine College of Arts and Trades (now Technological University of the Philippines) before at the College of Fine Arts of the Philippine Women’s University. He worked in the art department of Philippine Airlines for 16 years, until the time he decided to put up his own art and graphic design outfit, artCollaboration studio.

In 1974 he placed second, both in the Rotary Club of Manila On-the-Spot Painting Competition and the Manila Council Nationwide Painting Competition. He also garnered first prize in the latter competition. He was a finalist in 1996 Philippine Art Awards; a Jurors’ Choice in the 1994 Philip Morris Asean Art Awards; and, also in 1994, a finalist in the Diwa ng Sining of the Rotary Club and NCCA. Ross Capili is also the entrepreneur behind OWG Art Gallery in Makati City.

FLASH! PHILLIP VICTOR

PHILIP VICTOR (born Felipe Cadid Victor on May 1, 1944) finished his degree from the University of Santo Tomas with a double major in Advertising and Painting. He is one of the contemporary artists whose name is written in the Philippine Arts History. He made remarkable contributions to the country’s arts by introducing creations that were entirely new-fangled and beautified by his own personal stroke. He won several times in different art competitions and 7 of them came from the Arts Association of the Philippines. Phillip was able to hold 14 one-man shows since the beginning of his visual arts career. He participated in nearly 200 group exhibitions. He went abroad to promote Philippine Arts. 12 of his group shows were held in different countries and a one-man show in New York was held last October 2003. He is also a member, Icon and leader of two important local art groups; one of the founder of Hagonoy Art Group and past President of Lakan Sining ng Bulacan.

Phillip Victor’s arts evolved into 4 stages; experimental, mixed media, installation paintings and what he called beyond arts, where he keeps on introducing and presenting different art resources and materials that are innovative in nature. They are very unusual and unique kind of arts that give justice to his equally inimitable art concept. He died last July 19, 2006.

FLASH! FITZ HERRERA

FLASH! ANDREW DE GUZMAN

FLASH! EGHAI ROXAS

EGHAI ROXAS as a youth in the 1970’s had engrossed himself in the clean figuration of Social Realism, and as a student in the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts he had as mentors such prominent abstractionists as Jose Joya, Alfredo Liongoren (early exponent of figurative-abstract blend), Nestor Vinluan, Constancio Bernardo (abstraction pioneer). Such amalgamation of polarities springs naturally from Roxas' artistic progression. Roxas has held a series of exhibits in Vienna and Essen. He received the Jurors' Choice at the 1994 Philip Morris Philippine Art Awards, and won for nonrepresentational painting at the 1997 Art Association of the Philippines competition.

Roxas’ signature floating element and textured abstraction are set in a quasi-abstract world where unidentified objects float in space. They situate in a visual space that could be a landscape, a seascape, or outer space. Roxas' technique consists of layering of various textures and embellishing with gestural strokes. Such is the faultless nuptial of the representational and the nonrepresentational in art - because these free-floating forms are really figurative that even have shadows, and the graphic field observably is abstracted. The peculiar yet pertinent pairing results in what appears to be Surrealism that could also be Zen.

FLASH! DANILO GARCIA

DANILO O. GARCIA took up Fine Arts (major in advertising) initially at the University of Santo Tomas and moved to the newly opened Fine Arts department at the University of the East on his third year. He joined the 1971 Shell art competition and won an award for a painting in mixed media. After he dropped out from the university, he participated in a number of group shows, notably those of Grupo Ocho, an eight-man band of artists from the UE with strong experimental leanings in contemporary art expression. In his third one-man show in 1981 Garcia's paintings had fully shifted to abstraction. Totally abandoning figurative painting, his show at the Luz gallery used acrylic, canvas, masking tape and string to create lines and shapes of controlled tonal variations, graceful rhythms and smooth contrasts.

In ensuing one-man exhibits, Garcia delved into the varying character of the circle, the square, the oval, and the straight and curved lines in different combinations and contexts, in concordant and well-balanced visual and conceptual interactions of moment and space even as they richly alluded to the terrestrial and extra-terrestrial worlds and the meta physical realm. In all of these works, precision and refinement mark Garcia's execution, forms mimicking mechanically produced airbrush art, but were definitely a result of his uncanny skill and talent with the paintbrush. From his brown monochromes of earlier years, his color evolved to the elegance of monochromes while exploring the tonalities of the rainbow spectrum.

FLASH! ALFREDO LIONGOREN

ALFREDO ARITCHETA LIONGOREN, born 15 January 1944, is recognized in Philippine contemporary art history as one of the country's earlier abstractionist when this modernist visual vocabulary was assimilated into the country's cultural expressions. He showed experimentation with materials like burlap, rope, sand, and glue which he incorporated into his oil paintings in the mid-1960s. His works are combined abstraction and figuration. He has also been painting on abstract landscapes which explore the medium of paint: oil, acrylic, and watercolor. A multi-awarded artist, Liongoren's calligraphic brushwork paintings infused sensibilities such as intuition and refinement into the works under Philippine abstraction. Liongoren was a recipient of the Thirteen Artist of the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 1972.

FLASH! RAUL ISIDRO

RAUL ISIDRO was the TOYM (Ten Outstanding Young Men) awardee in 1979 in the field of Fine Arts. Armed with a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts (1965) from the University of Santo Tomas, Isidro joined the faculty of the Philippine Women's University wherein he taught for nine years, and was appointed the director of Fine Arts in 1975. He was a former president of the Art Association of the Philippines. During his decade-long stay in Hay ward (east of San Francisco), California, Isidro was the only Asian member of the Hay ward Arts Council.

After decades in the art scene, Isidro’s audience remains guaranteed of his unswerving dedication to abstraction. A calm, rhythmical coherence invigorates his works- Isidro makes certain that he never overloaded the image. And in the expanse of his art practice, Isidro is much too inexhaustible an artist to arrive at a turning point. By no means looking back, he pursues His own route.

FLASH! JAVY VILLASIN

JAVY VILLICIN (Jose Villacin Jr.) graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree major in painting at the University of the Philippines Diliman in 1980 and was a British Council, Byam Shaw School of Art, London fellowship grantee in 1988. Currently, Villacin holds a professorial chair at the fine arts program of the University of the Philippines in Cebu City.

For a time Villacin was in hibernation in his craving to achieve the “shambala” (an advanced plane of awareness and spirituality.) Never losing his state of consciousness, Villacin came out triumphant and rejuvenated from his astral wanderings. His canvasses continue to exhibit impressions and expressions from his foray into the dream world; composite, organic, anthropomorphic or vegetal forms.

But the basic elements of a Villacin artwork are the drawings. There are these usual pencil backgrounds which are far from being the fine or final cleaned up drawings that rejoice the diffidence, the bravado even, in some cases, the pandemonium of drawing. Together with drawing, Villacin also utilizes the array of techniques possible with his favorite medium; acrylic. Of these, layering is the most perceptible. This provides the spatial and, even, tonal texture to the works.

FLASH! SHERWIN TAN

SHERWIN TAN is noted for his distinctive work. They present a surreal, minimalist look of small figures done in gray set against an all-white backdrop. Another distinguishing mark is a red ball, which Tan describes as the rising sun. Tan explains that the rising sun offers a symbol of hope. Every painting he does features this red symbol. Thus, no matter what the subject of a particular painting is, the sun is always there to offer some measure of hope.

As a painter for more than eleven years, Sherwin Tan employs oriental calligraphic strokes with a touch of the old way of writing to a modern way of painting. His modern and figurative abstraction paintings exhibit black and white colors and textured layers created by various techniques; each layer of paint is applied with purpose, building upon soft washes and energetic brush strokes. Whereby acrylic is the favorite painting medium, Tan also uses canvases, paper, ostrich eggs, toilet paper, tile, ceramics and dramatically narrow, horizontal surfaces as well. Sherwin Tan graduated at the University of San Carlos Cebu City with a Bachelor of Fine Art Major in Advertising.

FLASH! NESTOR OLARTE VINLUAN

NESTOR OLARTE VINLUAN is a stalwart of Philippine abstraction. He has a Bachelor in Fine Arts Degree from the University of the Philippines in Diliman. He holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Pratt Institute in New York on a Fulbright Hays scholarship. He served as Dean of the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts from 1989 to 1998. With a professional career spanning over three decades, he has been the recipient of numerous awards and distinctions, including the Professional Achievement Award in the Arts in 1993 and Artist-in-residence in 2004 at the Sculpture Square in Singapore. A veteran of several group and solo shows, he has been chosen many times as the country’s representative in various exhibitions around the world.

Vinluan has been presenting installations since 1986 and the spheres that punctuate this exhibition had been an ongoing theme since 1995. Also evident in his works are Nestor Vinluan's consistent contributions to Philippine non-objective art.

FLASH! ROY VENERACION

ROY VENERACION received his BFA degree from the University of the Philippines in 1970. He has won several 1st prize awards including the prestigious Cultural Center of Philippines 13 artists award in 1990. Since 1974 he has been active in the pursuit of artistic excellence and has mounted numerous one man shows in the country. Roy Veneracion is a familiar name in Asian Art circles having participated in many exhibitions and Art Festivals in the region as well as on several occasions in western venues.

Roy Veneracion was a prime mover and co-founder of the Remedios Circle, a group of artists active in the 1980’s whose exhibiting members included such notables as Lao Lianben, Gus Albor, Ian Veneracion, Junyee, Jojo Legaspi, Cesare Syjuco, Jean Marie Syjuco, Rock Drilon, Nestor Vinluan, Hermie Santos, the late Mars Galang, and others. The group met regularly in search of the visual expression of contemporary times and thought. Roy Veneracion’s art is associated with a style characterized as Syncretism.

FLASH! DENNIS MONTERA

SIO MONTERA (Dionisio “Dennis” E. Montera), a Cebuano visual artist earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of the Philippines (UP) Visayas-Cebu in 1996 and proceeded to earning a Master’s degree in Fine Arts from the UP Diliman College of Fine Arts in October 2004. After completing his graduate studies (MFA, Studio Arts 2004) at the College of Fine Arts in the University of the Philippines (U.P. Diliman Campus), he is now currently an assistant professor in the Fine Arts Program of U.P. Cebu College Campus where he first served as member of the faculty as a part-time lecturer in 1996. Sio is also the Program Coordinator of the said academic program and handles art history, art theory, techniques, materials, research methods, and thesis courses. Despite working in the academe, Sio balances his time as an active menber in the national and local art community where he regularly mounts an annual solo show and group exhibitions featuring his major works. He is also currently a member of the National Committee on Visual Arts of the Philippine National Commission for Culture and the Arts. For the past decade Sio's work has been profoundly non-objective and explores the use of composite media combined ingeniously with industrial construction techniques and processes. The artist mounts regular solo exhibitions at the art walk in SM Megamall in Mandaluyong City in Metro Manila and at the SM Art Center in his hometown of Cebu. He is also one of the founding members of the art group "Tuslob-Buwa", was a former chairperson of PUSOD, Inc. (The Open Organization of Cebu Visual Artists), and an active member of the Visyas Islands Visual Artists Association (VIVAA). Sio is also the Project Director of the SM Summer Art School, an annual summer art-workshop for kids (every April to May) at the Trade Hall of SM City Cebu.

15 FILIPINO ABSTRACTIONISTS AT GALERIE ANNA

Galerie Anna proudly presents the exhibition: Flash! Fifteen Filipino Abstractionists, from October 18 to November 8, 2008. This major exhibition covering Philippine Abstract practitioners from the Sixties to the present includes some of the most recognized names in Philippine Modern Art, as well as some of the most interesting and exciting Abstract practitioners of the present. They include: Ross Capili, Danilo Garcia; Andrew de Guzman, Fitz Herrera, Raul Isidro, Alfredo Liongoren, Sio Montera, J Elizalde Navarro, Eghai Roxas, Hermi Santo, Sherwin Tan, Roy Veneracion, Phillip Victor, Javy Villacin and Nestor Olarte Vinluan.

The exhibition includes such pivotal practitioners as National Artist Jeremias Elizalde Navarro, whose in-depth readings of Wassily Kandinsky and Hans Hoffmann in New York brought new life and vigor to color-field Abstraction in the 1950s; to Phillip Victor, whose indigenous location in Bulacan did not prevent him from gaining insight as a Minimalist practitioner whose ethos is still tied to the timeless intimacy of landscape. They also include the works of renowned 2nd generation artists of the 1960s and 1970s like the elegiac tropical rainfall-like strokes of former Dean of the UP College of Fine Arts, Nestor Olarte Vinluan; the calligraphic simplicity of artist Alfredo Liongoren; the elegant circular geometries of Raul Isidro; the hybrid “syncretistic abstractions” of Roy Veneracion; the mystical but exuberant coloration of Hermi Santo; the illusionistic capacities of Abstractionist Eghai Roxas; the serene hard-edged chromatic submlimations of Danilo Garcia; the diaphanous-like curtains and strokes of color by Ross Capili; or the geometric planarity-plus-expressive gesturalism of Cebu-based Abstractionist Javy Villacin.

They in turn inspire and are joined by third generation abstractionists like Pulilan, Bulacan-based colorfield artist Andrew de Guzman; Cebu-based multi-faceted Abstractionist and UP Cebu Fine Arts Professor Dennis “Sio” Montera; calligraphic artist and Zen Abstractionist Sherwin Tan; or Postmodern Abstractionist Fitz Herrera.

FLASH! Fifteen Filipino Abstractionists shall be on view at Galerie Anna, 7th floor, Ramon Magsaysay Center, Roxas Boulevard corner Dr. J. Quintos Street, Manila 1004 Philippines. For more information and queries about the gallery and the exhibition, you can log on to www.galerieanna.com, contact Gallery Manager Mr. Joffrey Baylon at landline number (632) 5679483, or email at info@galerieanna.com.