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More Than Just Ukay Ukay
by Alice G. Guillermo
Today, September 7, 2003
UKAY-UKAY, the title of the current
group exhibit at the Hiraya Gallery, gives one the
sense of rummaging through last year’s fashion statements
to find a piece or two that could pass for new with
the least sign of wear and tear. Of course, ukay-ukay
has for some time now been part of the art scene with
the interest in vintage objects or antiquities, in
retro trends of decades or even a century ago, or
even in punk streetwear, as well in the case of appropriation,
which is drawing from an original work but giving
it a new twist or situating it in a new or contemporary
context. But the paintings in the present show come
straight from the mint, so to speak, still bearing
the warmth of the artist’s hands. Indeed, they are
the latest inspired productions of six artists: Leonard
Aguinaldo, Valeria Cavestany, Mario de Rivera, Fernando
Escora, Ige Ramos and Francisco Viri, all if not most
of whom have exhibited at the Hiraya Gallery. For
those who have followed their career, these may be
seen to constitute their latest developments.
De Rivera who had a recent exhibit
in the same gallery, comes up with two new works,
Dolores and Ave
Stella Orientis, his titles manifesting the aural/textual
aspect of his art in the fascination with names and
words, often archaic-sounding, with their particular
cultural inflections. These present works somewhat
differ from those of his latest show in his more limited
use of color but with a more pervasive and expressive
effect. In fact, his new use of color has passed from
the richly ornamental with the influence of Middle
Eastern carpets and medieval illuminations to the
magical with their sophisticated chromaticism. The
title Dolores
evokes the Mater Dolorosa, although she is not present
here in this painting suffused with intense ultramarine
tones overlaid with flowering trees in brown and bluish
green in the two-dimensional pictorial space. Instead,
grouped above among the foliage and vines are angels
and saintly figures venerating the dead Christ in
the section below. A certain morbid eroticism emanates
from the dead Christ figure. Without a halo and therefore
thoroughly human, it is a beautiful male figure classically
proportioned, of deep brown skin tones, his muscles
and joints fully articulated, and his folded loincloth
starkly white in contrast with the brown body. He
lies on a precious gold coverlet beneath which are
roses of homage for the dead but it is the intense
and pervasive ultramarine tones that effect a fusion
of pleasure and pain.
The other painting Ave Stella Orientis
has an icon of the Virgin as the principal figure.
Her iconic aspect is heightened by her elaborate gold
halo which does not circle around her head in the
usual way but as a two dimensional form encircles
her face and connects with her gold robe. On the robe
itself are indigenous designs such as those of the
complex geometric pis together with Chinese spiraling
cloud motifs. The left section of the visual field
is almost entirely of pure color, a sumptuous red,
orange, not rendered flatly but with rich, painterly
layers that flow into each other. With his familiar
phototransfer technique, he superimposes small Cordillera
portraits along the border, of bare-breasted girls
and musicians playing bamboo instruments. Such a painting
reveals the underlying religious and orientalist aestheticism
that creates the visual seduction of much of de Rivera’s
work.
Another striking work is Aguinaldo’s
Memorial
to a Poisoned Dog in vertical format and
done in his medium that he now refers to as ukir,
handpainted on carved rubber sheet. One recalls an
earlier seriocomic work he did on the theme of his
pet dog, a victim of a hit-and-run accident. This
new work has more mythic undertones. Here the white
dog, all curled up, is ensconced in the center of
a mandala form, circle and square alternating, within
a decoratively bordered field. Intense energy bristles
and emanates in red-orange hues from the mandala.
Meanwhile, in a dense bamboo grove on the curve of
a rising ground, dogs with long foxlike heads but
with human bodies play hide and seek, as a red-orange
background suggests the effusion of feral energies.
One thematic characteristic of Aguinaldo’s work that
distinguishes him from other artists who deal with
the theme of nature and ethnicity is the conjunction
of indigenous/traditional world views with contemporary,
particularly computer technology. Thus, in the work
My Screen Saver, a row of three Igorot men and one
woman, wearing a combination of shirt or tapis and
g-string, face front, their faces with little expression.
Against these etched figures with their background
of linear designs all in even gray tones are superimposed
small colorful icons, such as those for Windows or
for Internet Explorer. What effect such juxtapositions
may give is the poignancy, even pathos, of the discrepancy
or gap between traditional societies and urban lifestyles
linked up with advances in communication and travel.
Ironies inevitably arise from such extreme juxtapositions
of imagery and contexts, but they remain open-ended,
with no resolution in sight.
Viri’s style is familiar by now
and here he has two watercolor paintings, The Forbidden
Truths and The
Surge of the Lunatic Spirits. He paints
the human figure as a two-dimensional form drawn with
a minimalist economy, a generic and abstract figure,
with no individualizing marks. He likewise exists
in a two-dimensional space, with little of no props
indicating social exchange. Now, however, the background
or context, if not will, has taken on a more lively
quality. Above and around the figure seems to be a
paper shower, or ticker tape, although this does not
suggest any further significations other than the
pure function of enlivening the field, since they
contrast their light yellow against the darker orange
or yellow ground. There seem, however, to be slight
developments. There is a more strongly perceptible
tonal modulation of the background from lighter to
much darker, involving a visual dynamism. Here, too,
the sole figure of the generic two-dimensional man
interfaces with the yellow section of the background
in a kind of tentative interpenetration. These paintings
are obliquely psychological at the same time that
their intriguing titles, as significant textual elements
of the work, hint at events like sunspots that occur
in the solar mind.
The paintings of Escora strongly
contrast with Viri’s except for the one fact that
their human figures are equally generic types although
in quite different ways. In contrast to Viri’s bloodless
figures, Escora’s are fleshly and erotic. String of
Lovers and Tryst, for instance, celebrate physical
love in an exuberant and uninhibited expression. The
rendering of the figures in a flowing, painterly style
creates an aura of energy in these powerful but compact
compositions.
Quite distinctively, Cavestany’s
figures are portraits of particular women with the
convention of flower borders. The subjects of A Cigarette
a Day and With Love and Pearls are contemporary middle-class
Asian women, suggesting Chinese descent. Physically
attractive, they show a conventional upbringing, as
in the woman posing confidently in her black dress
with a string of pearls. Her privileged circumstances
are hinted at by the large blossoms that surround
her. This is also true for the charming young woman
who maintains a coquettish habit of smoking a cigarette
a day. The blurring of tones, as in a photograph,
suggests the passage of time.
Working in another medium is Ramos,
a graphic designer who has three works here in digital
media, particularly giclee prints or arches paper,
belonging to his Oyster Series, Linear Series and
Snow Series. In these, he shows a strong command of
line and tone. In one abstract work, he plays with
dynamically undulating lines with a superimposed counterdesign;
in another, he creates a network of convoluted lines
converging in several nuclei across the surface.
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