Brush up on these August shows, fresh off the easel
August is jam-packed with reasons to make time for art. Artist Atelier Philippines (ARTa) has just opened a new creative learning center at Proscenium in Rockwell, offering classes from drawing to acrylic and watercolor painting, as well as writing classes, alongside workshops in floral arrangement and weaving, for both children and adults.
Vinyl on Vinyl’s latest lineup also brings together new exhibitions by Reen Barrera, Lan Amante, Teo Esguerra, and a fun multidisciplinary group show put together by Jellyfish Kisses (Anton Belardo).
It’s a busy month for Karrivin Plaza as well. At The Drawing Room, veteran artist Roberto Feleo presents a museum-caliber exhibition that continues his decades-long engagement with Philippine history and mythology. Furniture maker Milo Naval also shifts gears with his first solo art show for the 10th anniversary of Aphro. While at Archivo 1984, advertising legend Manny del Rosario opens a solo photography exhibition, “The Leisurely Art of Wandering and Observing” as well as the book launch documenting the fashion illustrations of Maning Obregon. All these top up a month brimming with creativity across Manila and beyond.
Ayka Go, “Small Vast Things” at Silverlens Manila
July 25 to Aug. 22
Go’s much-anticipated show moves away from her distinct paper-like forms and into nature. She draws from observations of butterflies, caterpillars, dragonflies, and other natural beings under a microscope. While cultivating a garden in her studio, she reflected on a period of health challenges while flowing through a seasonal change of self-transformation.
“Light passing through the wings revealed how their [butterfly] colors come to be. Under a microscope, blue wings appear in grey tones… There is beauty in nature’s concealment,” she says about a show that signals a fresh direction in her practice, painting with new techniques in refreshingly vivid palettes.
Bernardo Pacquing, “Disrupting Whorl Order” at West Gallery
July 30 to Aug. 29
The seminal figure in Philippine contemporary art is known for his Brutalist, Abstract Expressionist works that transform the refuse of Metro Manila. Pacquing continues his “Blossoms” series, deconstructing floral forms into gestural fields of oil and house paint—a material associated with labor and maintenance. By doing this, he resists the gentrified, sanitized aesthetics of urban development, favoring the look of time and wear, although beautifully so.
Blic, “Hard Shifts” at Joyman Gallery, Bangkok
July 30 to Aug. 29
Filipino artist Blic’s exhibition in Bangkok echoes Nietzsche’s concept of amor fati, or the open acceptance of one’s fate. While Blic does not romanticize struggle or numbness, his distinctive imagery of personified human hands, or “Humands,” transmits visceral emotions of soldiering on despite it all, from clutching stress balls in surreal settings to pulling oneself upwards from unknown depths.
Ja Amores, “Gorls Gorls Gorls” at the Indigo Gallery, BenCab Museum, Baguio
Aug. 8 to Sep. 27
What does it mean to grow up today? This young Baguio-based illustrator, who already has much international work under her belt, makes her solo debut with an honest exploration of girlhood. She reflects on growing up in a generation of online culture, interspersed with family memories.
Her works depict images of cats and women that overlap, some wearing suits, others boxing gloves, all in a layered depiction of push and pull.
MJ Suayan, “Just Before the Sunshine” at ACM Studio
Aug. 3 to 9
Fashion photographer Suayan deliberately exposes photographs to chemicals, iron, dust, soil, rain, and sunlight before scanning them mid-decay. The resulting rust, corrosion, and bleeding inks speak for themselves, with photographs that appear closer to paintings.
“Open House: Kaleidoscope” at Modeka
Aug. 8 to 29
The gallery’s annual group exhibition continues to gather an exciting roster of emerging and established artists, always celebrating a kaleidoscope of perspectives. Artists this year range from the classical works of Andre Baldovino to the uncanny figures of Lynyrd Paras, alongside pieces by collector Migs Camacho and many others, promising an exciting exhibition for the local art community.
“A Ripple that Swallows the Land” at Orange Project, Bacolod
July 24 to Sep. 26
This group exhibition in Bacolod brings together artists whose paintings move between figuration and abstraction, personal and collective memory, past and present.
Using the ripple as both a physical and metaphorical gesture, the exhibition explores how painting continues to evolve through movement and exchange, as artists respond to the shared painting medium, with work from Jojo Barja, Valeria Chua, John and Nara Marin, Jason Montinola, Sid Nativdad, Kim Oliveros, Nix Puno, and more.
Pope Bacay, “What We Hold Sacred”
July 30 to Aug. 29
Undoubtedly one of the strongest shows of the month, Bacay continues to touch on the theme most prominent in his work: everyday architecture, this time pushing it to the next level, lifting it out of the canvas and encasing his paintings in actual iron boxes.
As he extends his practice beyond the image itself, the landscapes inside the paintings take on a more intangible element than a structural one, imploring viewers to reconsider “What We Hold Sacred.”
Winner Jumalon, “Unruly Matter” at ArtCube
Aug. 1 to 29
Thick ridges of oil paint threaten to engulf lemons, pomegranates and ceramic blue pitchers, suggesting the invisible memories of fatherhood and domestic life, while resin sculptures cast from household objects and the artist’s own head balance precariously between stability and collapse.
As Jumalon creates rich, densely painted studies of objects in the home, he speaks to the weight of everyday life, but ultimately seems to stay afloat.
