The exhibition is Nada’s fifth solo show, coming off of a hiatus of six years since his fourth. So the title “Homecoming” is fitting, marking his return to the gallery setting. Those familiar with his personal street art style and murals scattered around the San Juan and Quezon City area will be interested to see how his style has evolved. And evolved it has, revealing a secondary meaning to the show’s title: come into the Nada household.
Read MoreWater Water Everywhere Not A Drop To Drink: Bato At VoV
Empty, matte black figures suspended above dust piles in a small, windowless room and a dry faucet on the far end. It’s a bleak scene, one loaded with implications for our future if the world continues on its path. The installation is Dennis Bato‘s “Element Of The Past” show at Vinyl on Vinyl, which opened this week. And although meaning behind this piece of concept art is unclear at first glance, all it takes is a nudging from the artist himself to send its possibilities spiraling. He says it’s about the existence humans might face from the choices we’ve made, specifically the specter of water crises, which Manila only recently suffered through as millions of people faced limited access to water.
Read MoreReen Barrera Explores The Idea Of Families At Vinyl On Vinyl
Family. It’s the basic unit of human connection, an integral part of existence, the root of one’s identity, usually composed of parents and children in the same household. Most consider the people they were born into and share a bloodline with as their family.
Endless Loyalty: JP Pining At Secret Fresh
JP Pining knows who’s got a soft spot for their fuzzy little friends. In his second solo show at Secret Fresh, dubbed “Endless Loyalty,” he uses his trademark geometric style to illustrate different breeds of dogs, capturing them in riotous color. JP has a doggo to call his own, who is part of the inspiration behind this show, but another driving force was witnessing how people are changed by forming relationships with their dogs. Any pet lover would know what it’s like, and these bonds were on full display with all the pets running around that night.
Read MoreEdon Tuazon Fabreo’s Urban Philippine Dioramas
Sometimes it takes some distance for you to really appreciate your home. That’s basically what happened to Edon Tuazon Fabreo. Although he’d been interested in miniature scale models since he was a kid, it wasn’t until a trip back to Manila after spending a few years in Saudia Arabia as an OFW that he decided on combining the two loves.
Read MoreBeyond The Streets Goes Above And Beyond
Hosted during a scorching Brooklyn summer, “Beyond The Streets” boasts over 100,000 square feet of exclusive collections by more than 150 of the world’s most celebrated street artists and pop artists. Located along the newly luxurious Williamsburg waterfront, the exhibition brings together some of society’s most pervasive mark makers and rule breakers.
Curated by Roger Gastman, “Beyond the Streets NYC” displays how graffiti was born in the streets of New York and Philadelphia during the late ’60s and has grown to take over galleries in the 2010s, blending with a new era of pop art.
Read MoreThe Jellyfish Karaoke, a Safe Space
The karaoke machine is ubiquitous in Asian life, so what better way to communicate with an audience? Anton Belardo’s new exhibit, The Jellyfish Karaoke, revolves around it. This is the third installment of her ongoing visual diary series Jellyfish Kisses, a playful and experiential searching of complex human emotions.
The paintings and sculptures all circle around Anton’s personal experiences of heartbreak, sadness, pleasure, and joy. Each piece has a karaoke code for a title. Once loaded into the machine, a pop song will play to help the viewer interpret, as well as relate with, the art piece.
Read MoreThe Corporate World According To Tekla Tamoria
Corporate life is not what immediately comes to mind when viewing Grace Period, Tekla Tamoria‘s current solo exhibit at Vinyl on Vinyl. But upon closer inspection, the clues and hints referencing work life in the concrete jungle slowly reveal themselves. Hanging structures made of paper strips resemble tall city buildings. Concrete legs firmly set beneath each lend an authoritative character. The pieces also bring to mind tiny office cubicles and their claustrophobic, trapped feel.
Even the materials Tekla uses are regular office supplies, such as fluorescent sticky labels and filing folders. She skillfully folds, rolls, and weaves these all together to create some truly quirky sculptures.
Read MoreArt Fair 2019, Manila
I only had a couple of hours to spend at Art Fair PH this year. It definitely wasn’t enough time to take in everything but I’m still glad I was able to go and have a good experience from it.
Here are my favorites from this year’s exhibits, dividing them into several categories that specifically speak to me.
Read MoreLook Inside Taipei’s Andy Warhol Retrospective at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall
Taipei’s CKS Memorial hall is host to a 4-gallery retrospective to the late pop art icon and creator, Andy Warhol. So much of what we celebrate today as street and contemporary art is erected through the trench dug out by Warhol’s work, as the American artist blurred the lines between industrial and fine art. So when we had the chance to take a look at this exhibit, we jumped at the opportunity.
Accessibility becomes a major theme of the exhibit, with a multitude of magazine and album covers designed and signed by Warhol. One can only be amused at how Andy chose to autograph the prints, often inscribing his name right over the faces of the subjects of the portraits. This adds an extra and curious layer to the exhibit, making one wonder exactly what went through his head daily.
Read More