There's more to the television set than the random or manipulated images flashed on its screen.

"It can dictate a culture," says Fernando Escora, pointing up the rationale behind his latest works, which Hiraya Gallery is presented in Irrealities last December 1999.

The idea isn't new, of course, even among artists. At least two others, who have themselves exhibited at Hiraya -- Alfredo Esquillo Jr. and Gabriel Barredo, have also exploited it. But unlike either Esquillo or Barredo, who has shunted, though no less significantly, to an isolated work or two, Escora has built an exhibit entirely around it.

With him, the TV screen becomes in itself a subtle medium of change, particularly, he stresses, in the way the viewer thinks.

"It can make the unnatural, natural -- and vice versa."

"Irrealities" consists of nine large works, five of which are presented here, all of them rendered meticulously in pen and ink on canvas.

The exhibit is essentially a visual essay on the universal theme of reality versus illusion. What makes it not just contemporary, but also relevant are the sub-themes -- from conservative religiosity to feminism, from environmental degradation to social inequities, etc. And Escora virtually crams them in, at times to a clutter.

But then, maybe, that's part of the culture, as he sees it.

Escora, 30, took up fine arts at the University of the Philippines as a working student. A three-time finalist in the Shell National Art Competition and once a juror’s prize awardee in the AAP Annual Art Competition, he had his first solo exhibit in 1996 through Hiraya’s "Young Artists Discovery Program." Two years later, he had his second show, Candy Dark, also at Hiraya.

Apparently, Escora is be guided by the theme he explores more fully on another level in "Irrealities," for in "Candy Dark," what deceives -- i.e., the illusory, is also a constant, if lightly so.

In "Irrealities," however, Escora is dead serious.

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