Philippine Art Awards proclaim Visayan regional winners

LIKE THE VISUAL ARTS VERSION OF A “Philippine Idol” competition, the Philippine Art Awards (PAA) swept into high gear, igniting the aesthetic spark plugs of the country’s artistic communities.

Close on the heels of the recent awarding of the Mindanao regional winners was the recent proclamation of winners from the Visayan region. No less than Gov. Gwen Garcia graced the occasion at Museo Sugbo, the provincial museum of Cebu.

The 10 award-winning artists and their works are: Lucilo Sagayno (Cebu) for his work “Twisted;” Eliseo Libo-on Jr. (Bacolod) for “Water Is Life;” John Paul Castillo (Iloilo) for “State of Complexity;” Frank Alexi Nobleza (Guimaras) for “Stapled;” Marvin Chito Natural (Toledo City) for “The Filipino Art of Problem-Solving;” Nomar Miano (Lapu-Lapu City) for “Milagrosa;” JZY Tilos (Iloilo) for “Mari-it;” Cezar Arro (Iloilo) for “Deception;” Edmar Colmo (Iloilo) for “Connected;” and Jovito Hecita Jr. (Talisay City) for “Balik-Loob.”

“The artists of the Visayas express a distrust of appearances, or, more to the point, of mystifications spun by the media, government, the elite, commerce, and those who rule at the same time proclaim change for those they have corrupted,” Patrick Flores, who curated the show, said. “This is why a strong sense of commentary on the ethos and morality of the day arises from their works. They speak of an earth being depleted, a nation being corroded, and even the self worn down irrevocably by vice and greed. The titles of their works betray their sentiment against the hypocrisy of messiahs: ‘Twisted,’ ‘Deception,’ ‘Stapled.’ Nonetheless, they still aspire to renewal: ‘Connected,’ ‘Problem-solving,’ ‘Pagbabalik-loob,’ or ‘Homing in on the Heart.’”

Impressive

Impressive, indeed, were the diversity of themes and the spectrum of technical approaches that engaged the Visayan artists, who manifested no allegiance to any single idiom. Rather, the artworks were a visual response to a personal cause or concern, by turns assertive and reflective.

A veritable Boticelli Venus, the image of “Milagrosa” is a conflation of Madonna and a shyly shielded naked housewife. Enthroned in an ecclesiastical setting, she is nonetheless entrapped amidst the tyrannical emblems of domesticity: a slew of kitchen wares. Related to the theme of faith is “Deception” where a human visage is transformed into a mask upon which a murky apparition of religious figures emerges.

A similar penchant for the splintered image and spatial constriction is the terrain of humanity in “Connected.” Fragmented figures shift along planes of light, crowding densely in jagged forms.

Fragmentation again, this time of a human visage, is evoked in the unraveling of a woven mat, alluding to the stripping of identity, in “Balik-Loob,” while another work titled “Mari-it,” which is the Hiligaynon term for “enchantment,” revels in the fulsome rendition of the spirit world. It is audacious in execution, courting the dreamscape of fantasy.

An ingenious use of symbolism imbues the painting “Problem-Solving,” which coalesces a corroded metal sheet with the imagery of the Philippine map, an indictment of a people ever distressed by migration. Its chilling contemporary resonance, however, is the counterpart of the cool detachment of “State of Complexity,” harking back to the works of Western classical masters celebrating the glory of the human physique.

Intriguingly, abstraction is vitalized by the exploration of nontraditional materials: Sandpaper in “Twisted,” and in “Stapled,” an overwhelming mound and constellation of voluminous staple wires.

Finally, a lone sculpture titled “Water” is the eccentrically delightful figure of a man writhing in the stranglehold of serpentine water hoses. Thrashing madly about, the figure seethes with malevolent humor.

The winners from the Visayas will compete with the other 30 winners from Metro Manila, Luzon and Mindanao in the National Competition slated next year.

The Philippine Art Awards is jointly presented by Philip Morris Philippines Manufacturing Inc., National Museum, and Asian Tigers Lane Moving Philippines.

In the Visayas, the competition is supported by regional collection centers in Cebu (Lydia Aznar Alfonso Museum); Bacolod (Negros Museum); Iloilo (Dagyaw Center for the Arts); and Tacloban (UP Samar-Leyte Studies Center).

The winning works will be on exhibit until Jan. 23 at Museo Sugbo, M.J. Cuenco Avenue, Tejero, Cebu City.