For Jeffrey Salon, the Kids are Not Alright

BY JAY BAUTISTA |

Stripping them of their natural colors, coherent lines and even shall we say, good intentions, the works of Jeffrey Salon have been committed to children and to all things emanating from them. Admittedly, quite disturbing these painting may be, his insistence that this message cuts across and should be commonly understood remains uncompromised.

Salon feels time is ticking away and he may not have the privilege of time to even witness these children growing up decently. Their collective future may however be imperfect and grim but for Salon and his art all is not lost.

Innocents at War

Having acquired the knack for illustration early in his life, Salon has always been experimenting with contemporary street-smart images, as he unravels with the versatility of his brushstrokes. Amidst a canvas riddled with bullets, a cloud of uncertainty resulting from nuclear explosion shrouds whatever lies ahead to these two kids. We see them on the verge of desperation and Innocents at War speaks of the painful truth of violent effect on these kids. At an early age, these kids become distraught, traumatized and yes afflicted by what their urban warfare surroundings dictate. Not a pretty picture alright but Salon could not help depicting it. A very alarming scene that even the kids on the painting may not be allowed to view it. Void of sketches or any reference materials, Salon remains unease because even he does not know it he may even paint a worse version soon.

Shadows of Memories, New Heroes' Wish

Meanwhile the work Shadows of Memories, New Heroes’ Wish rebounds on a more romantic tilt. In a hopeful boy, Salon seeks a more positive light as he puts an end to all these prevalent (to paraphrase the Desiderata’s last lines) “sham, drudgery, and even his broken dreams.” This work represents everything that has won for him in major art competitions. Showing Salon’s soft heart and how it could translate to clear blue skies and happy smiles. Like parables, the message is simple and meaningful: what children want may not be a good and comfortable life but affection from a parent or being able to play freely.

If one notices Salon’s deep concern for children’s causes, it is because of a certain Rodrigo Benitez. A man of the world now disgruntled, Benitez was senior artist who sought refuge in his hometown in Bicol. A classmate introduced them and this chance encounter by his house by the sea, a sort-of-Tuesdays-with-Morrie would happen. Through endless hours, they would discuss anything under the sun except art but Salon would recall and reflect them in his works. Time lapsed and city life got Salon busy with his art, Benitez passed away last year. This still hurts Salon to this day. As he continues to fight this younger generation’s struggle, it is also important for him he does not sound as stale as old tobacco as he defends children in a style that is not staid or looks like a propaganda piece.

Peace Deployed

Peace Deployed is embarks as a serious critique of how the military has behaved or (misbehaved) these days. Salon stands for children’s rights all these are mirrored on the skin of this cold stoic soldier. Simple strokes bring home his thoughts of a war against their suffering and oppression. Notice how Salon plays with the details by employing the complex concepts like honor, love, peace, humility, and hope layered in an ethereal manner.

Salon does well in blending the child’s innocence with a heavy subject matter. Mixing the power of realism with an artistic sensibility that is not too forceful yet you know that you should be on his side. These days, children are being bullied not only in schools and in almost every aspect of their lives -- be it in their very homes and communities.

The abuse of media and all its nasty bits has also been Salon’s major undertaking of late. Today’s television and newspaper have espoused sensationalism that children may not be safe at all even in their very homes. Before they even reach their teens, they have been exposed to the radiation of violence and sexually explicit materials.

Temptation Island: Pearl of the Orient

What distinguishes Salon is his adept sense of composition, his musicality in seeing how his work would be rendered. Loaded with meaning you never really knew what he was telling, you just know he was telling it differently and wonderfully. In Temptation Island Pearl of the Orient, the body becomes the canvas and his message is clear.

In the end, it is all about that grim bitch called poverty that occupies these children in desolation in life. Poverty from concern from government, poverty in looking after one another, resulting in this culture of silence that makes him want to paint to affect his viewers, that we may do something for those young enough to be Salon’s own.

The subject of children has always been a sellable art. How many of these pieces are being displayed in mall art galleries. Although all is not lost, Salon’s sheer artistry could easily paint a pretty picture -- a perfect mother and child, a family strolling in the park, and these will sell at his commanding price. But Salon doesn’t need splats of colors nor fancy lines. His monochrome set marked by attention to hidden manifestations despite life’s atrocities, with a tearful red paint flowing, half his battle is already won.

(photo images from Joy Delgado)

Ricky Ambagan on His Last Hour of Summer

BY JAY BAUTISTA |

To deeply appreciate Isang Ikot is to contextualize what Ricky V. Ambagan did at the last hour of summer. Armed with his trusted digital camera, he took the last bus trip to Baguio in time for him to capture the first impressions of daybreak at Burnham Park. In all its available light and movement, after a succession of images, just when the sun was too harsh, he rode the next bus home.

Only the artist in Ambagan can become emphatically obsessed with the reflections of ephemeral light, as it moves on surfaces with the fluidity of water. The need to capture various moments in ever-changing, mingling of colors drove up to its saturated hues, it had to be at the sunny summer capital. He had to make the trip, to revisit the man-made lake named after Baguio’s master planner.

Hilera

Light Moves in Strange Ways

It was said that when Claude Monet found the perfect radiance in Giverny, the supposed founder of Impressionism never left this village on the right bank of the river Seine. He would eventually built his house and garden to accommodate the radiance around it. Similarly, being immersed in the urban setting, Ambagan had to steal the efflorescence of Baguio and offer it in a formal gallery setting/set-up.

One may not notice though, Ambagan’s distorted style is not mere transient impressions. Even his titles have a pun-intended informality such as Pamamanhikan which frames a boat in front of similar like-minded rafts, like a man proposing commitment to a woman and her older gentry. The fleeting effects of sunlight at different times in Hilera and Paghahanda glow that only the sunlight of Burnham Park can provide.

Paghihintay

Consider Maagang Pagdating and Silong, where the boats and even the trees are incidental, a mere part of what Ambagan attempts to be his full-blown pictorial possibilities. Combining all the split and splat of different colors produces a rich mist. As evidence, this craving was too intense that only he could dabble at such a scene on a temporal time upon returning to his studio to paint them.

Ambagan has painted the purity of sensations as in Paghihintay which plays red and blue in used opaque colors. You can almost jump at the offered seat. A closer study of his paintings will show that colors were often used straight from the tube or mixed on the canvas. He also scumbled colors in Tanaw and Lambingan using thin, broken layers of paint that allows the lower layers of color to shine through.

After two solo shows that depict the useless deluge of the maddening crowd of the city, Ambagan has opted to this eerie-like solitude, and as he says this time he lusted the hour before congestion seeps in, which is coincidentally that magic hour that photographers marvel about. As much as he wanted to embrace life’s harsh and raw realities last time around, he let’s go now, or more like a pause, a sort of crossroad to the decisions and creative directions he is about to embark.

Follower of the Sun

In this third solo exhibition, literally Ambagan continuous to seek his own light. In a totally new fashion, in an approach that isn’t highly polished nor graphic, and their subjects were neither classical nor historical, he has completely rejected the absolute value in a realist painterly style commonly associated with a Southern province. Like a true maverick, his is even a more dramatic departure from representational convention and even the painters from the alma mater that has bred and influenced him.

Ambagan has always favored momentary action regardless of people and tension, not only in the fleeting lights of a landscape, but in the day-to-day lives of the people. However as he belies absolute truths he defies himself, these 11 pieces are more relaxed compositions, where the boundary between subject and background often resembling a point-and-shoot snapshot with a soft-box light, are gracefully flashed by chance and spontaneity.

Maagang Pagdating

Looking at them side-by-side one has seen the Burnham Park of yore literally full circle. Although the images showed signs of strain and weariness having been there for more than half a century already, for Ambagan, the sheer confidence of his brushstrokes shows how familiar is he with this place and having gone here many times, however his familiarity is not one that breeds contempt. We suspect he is not yet done with Baguio altogether. This time around there are no browns or earth colors, not even local tone nor shadows even in his canvas. Only the blueness of the sky mirrors of the surface or the green of nature on water giving it a sense of freshness and abundance.

Tanaw

One might ask, what’s an old master heart clinging in his young adult body? It could be his need for freedom and meaning moves him too quickly. And now that the rains have arrived, one wonders what he will do or where he would go next.

Eye Witness For Kirby Roxas

BY JAY BAUTISTA |

Sometimes I see then paint it. Other times I paint it then see it.

Both are impure situations, and I prefer neither.

Jasper Johns

In his almost a decade of art practice, it is exacting for Kirby Roxas to constantly engage his public in a discourse. Like a jabbing boxer, how he dabbles in his own contemporary realism marrying the rational with the macabre; painstakingly employing various media like old geographic maps, obsession with random security numbers for whatever sequential requirement they entail, and even geometric forms traced by masking tapes to induce his kind of social relevance, he so consistently infects to his audience.

Ever probing, Kirby is well-versed in the medical sciences having studied physical therapy before he shifted to fine arts. Thus explains his methodical approach his concepts for exhibitions.

Sometimes these visual consultations sometimes emanate from the unlikeliest of opportunities and circumstances. Foreseendenials, his sixth solo exhibition at the Crucible (which opened on the day following Osama Bin Ladin’s death), it was in a recent high school reunion that Kirby met up with a former classmate who now works as an optometrist. Before that fateful night was over, he had already figured what would constitute the art pieces now on view.

We are All Even After All (Acrylic on Canvas)

Cross-eyed, Wall-eyed, and the Black-eyed

Revolting/revolving around one’s constant search for truth, fate, and the indigenous psyche of the Filipino, the centerpiece appropriates the Snellen Charts. Named after the Dutch ophthalmologist Hermann Snellen, the standard 13-letter test dates back in 1862 and has been a fair gauge in examining one’s visual acuity. For Kirby, the science of optometry seems another form of optical dialogue in painting. Cleverly spelling on the canvas Pagbalikbaliktarin Mo Man Ang Katotohanan (No matter how you continuously reverse fate) Irreversal Individual emphatically alludes to the beauty of our impermanent lives. Slightly hinted in the background, Kirby affirms one’s mortality and eventual demise. As the man seeks his own redemption, he vehemently reflects this existential inquiry to a mirror directly before him. A somewhat simultaneous jeopardy happens as roles are reversed and the viewer looking long and hard on the canvas is now in the same dilemma as the one depicted in the image.

His repetitive death wishes that are constant in his previous works would obviously be present in these pieces as variations in twists of one’s own fatality. An identified grim is evident as the prevalent gothic element of decay and uncertainty of his subjects forces him to make his brushstrokes even darker this time, as if the grayness witnesses the pollution of our culture with starkness all around us.

Instinct to Distinct (Acrylic On Canvas)

Fate, Faith, Pait

The running texts in the two smaller pieces accentuate his earlier premise of lifeless physicality, more of memento mori than doomsday placards. Again banality becomes another version of him.

As a man stands in front of a monolith of tombstones on the background, we clearly decipher in We Are All Even After All the inquiring Papaano Mo Haharapin Ang Iyong Kapalaran Sa Araw Na Itinakda Sa’yo (How will you face your luck in the day that is destined for you). Using the Snellen Charts again, one must realize that your allegorical near-sightedness could be a product of our own greed or one’s far-sighted view could be the corruption of the other.

As if an intended reply for the viewer, the next work, Instinct To Distinct, recites as Nasa Bawat Isa Makikita Ang Pagbabago Di Mahahanap Sa Yong Paligid (It is in each other that you will find change not in your surroundings). Being part of his community as seen in the political rally in the background, Kirby believes we all have a common destiny as a people and as an artist one must first capture its inescapable collective imagination as the spirit of change moves from within.

An artwork can only become meaningful once it has been given a second hard look. For this exhibition, a reading of the elements in the said charts and tests is crucial. Although his pieces may not be medium specific, they are historical in context. As soon as you recognized its personal and social message, one is drawn inward like in a hypnotic trance.

Acquaintance Test (Details)

Blinded by Science

The common myth is that the Ishihara test is a type test for the color blind. After first successful experiment was done by Dr. Shinobu Ishihara at the University of Tokyo in 1917 and as more people took the challenge, the Ishihara test did not actually recognized color blindness but only referred to those who could not decipher primary colors from one-another thus suffer more specific with red-green color deficiencies.

More than just blots in the spectrum, Kirby accurately did 31 plates in Acquaintance Test and graphically comprehended Dito Mo Makikita Ang Tunay Mong Kulay (It is here that you will see your true colors).

Emanating from his deep concern with our sense of being and belonging, Kirby texts clearly run schmuck, as if on target in the middle of the gallery space and the creative conscious somewhat saying “Have you been good lately?” like a Hallmark greeting card. The colors are may be accurate but subtle. Going further, Kirby professes we need not distort one’s innate beauty in make art adapt to the times and in dispelling what is currently perceived as art today.

Scientifically employing these charts and tests with thought-provoking intentions of what living (or dying for Kirby’s case) in our culture means, I fear mall-goers may just passively ignore and pass by without even seeing the show. Worse, they may even dismiss the exhibit as another fancy optometrist clinic.

Foreseendenials (fortune-foresee-denials: even his exhibition titles must have a special patent play of words) may have concocted an optical solution to a perplexing national migraine. Less than finding the proper antidote, at least Kirby makes one see what and where the future brings for a moment. And from where Kirby stands, he may even have a better vision than the one with the glasses who now sees us from his high office by the Pasig River.

A Colorless Soul for Judeo Herrera

BY JAY BAUTISTA |

“The sad plight of farmers compromising whatever is left to our agricultural sector in their farm lands only to be laborers on a daily wage earner is a cause for alarm. Not only did they left their families as well as their fields become untended but their dignity is tarnish as they struggle hard in a jungle of a city where there are no trees but of concrete as gray as decay of their existence.”

Thus wrote Judeo Herrera of his monumental work entitled Konkretong Gubat ng Mga Pangarap which was his entry in the recent Tanaw: National Art Competition of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

Konkretong Gubat ng Mga Pangarap

Ongoing at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, unfortunately the work is not among those hanged. And the exodus of farmers leaving his hometown is at an alarming rate prompting him to paint such predicament.

It is a welcome respite or one may even be grateful that Judeo has never left his roots in Tarlac. He represents all those non-Manila-based and non-Fine Arts school educated painters who try to break into the Philippine contemporary art scene. His staying put in his hometown may have some good vibes after all. Personally what Judeo offers is a fresh perspective, one whose brushstrokes may be more organic than the temporal contemporariness of the art spaces and the genre works in the galleries in the malls.

Contrary to its limiting nature, for him joining art contests with themes provides for Judeo the most liberating act there is. You really can’t separate the images of Tarlac from his works as it has always been his playground as his work represents how he approaches whatever grim matter there in his hometown with a fresh perspective. His style may be too blatant, as one both versed with realism and abstraction, he seems quite obsessive with his splats of paint and his use of “this ash-like tint” in his works.

From a simple theme of a farmer’s exodus to the city, with an explosion of his sub-conscious lies a certain fluidity which is constant among his images. The foreground is what the subconscious is to the viewer. Judeo is one of the few artists I know who’s well-versed with watercolor and oil-acrylic. This is just the initial mark of his brilliance.

However more than a talented artist that he is, one appreciates Judeo first as a good son. He had to forego his schooling to try out his luck in the KSA as a designer and he has applied his paintings, making each piece unique. Observing him at various phase of his artistry, for someone who has maximized colors early on, the element of this mixture of black and white is a welcome respite. Having worked in Al-Khobar, could he be affected by his short stint in Saudi Arabia had a drab effect on his paint brushes?

He explains further: Keeping in mind the overall appearance na gusto ko lumabas dun sa artwork, I usually start with an abstract background. Yung movements nung texture sa abstract background nagsusuggest nang direction or personality nung subject ko. Having learned decorative art painting sinubukan kong i-apply s artwork ko yung techniques na natutunan ko abroad. Iniiwasan ko gumamit ng skin tone. A friend told me there is no local color, ibig nyang sabihin kahit na anung kulay pwede mo gamitin sa kahit anung bagay. It’s the value that counts.

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Heart of Generosity


Kids are always part of Judeo’s initial forays with experimentation. In fact these were his first works using this style. Mothers, you can never get enough of them. Consider Heart of Generosity. Unlike other parents, Judeo was fortunate unlike those other artists who didn’t have mothers to support behind their back.



An Alliance Beyond Culture and Dependence

There is so much wealth of subjects for Judeo than one wonders has he become too personal for comfort. In the Alliance of Beyond the Culture of Dependence proves otherwise, social themes are also part of his consciousness. The pull of nationalism is nothing new to him as he is from Tarlac which is more than just represented as one in the eight rays of the Philippine flag and by an event known as Death March during World War II. An entry at the recent AAP-PAF, one would think socio-political view he does not prefer the rigid clenched-fist approach to solving poverty. He is more positive in narratives which are visual than symbolic more uses metaphor.

Judeo adds: I’m having fun at my new discovery as if making both non representational and representational painting at the same time. And as I try to enjoy the painting process this is what comes out, if it I like it and it turns out good kaya tinuloy tuloy ko na. The painting itself is composed of layers of paint kaya you really have to be patient na hintayin mong matuyo bago ka pumahid ng panibago. Thus when you will look into it closer mapapansin mo yung details nung pagkakapatong patong ng mga kulay.

Pragmatic

Pragmatic is my personal favorite, about love and its deeper meaning. Casting shadows of airplanes and other material well-off, one aspires to provide for a love one but what if she decides alone to fend for herself and leave him behind? Most especially when one is young and carefree. But what about commitment, dreams of having a together, of one’s talents to new hopes for the country.

Judeo’s works may not even be decorative or described as pretty. What makes these pieces come alive is its narrative is deeply rooted on his experiences channeled through his own artistic terms; from an artist who is not a product of your typical western fine arts degree or from the current city art scene. His not showing commercially does not mean he is not willing tto accept an invitation not to be part of where the action is.

A subject void of color which is almost stainless in effect may not be of sadness or of blandness but of liberation. Judeo’s careful attention to his hues, how colors are well coordinated against his images as his imagery continuously evolves, his involvement digs deeper and his palette becomes more gray in urban treatment.

More than just producing two presidential aspirants during the last presidential elections (if you were in another planet one even made it to Malacañang), Tarlac has been a community of young masters like Judeo are churning out masterpieces as they add to the luster that is Philippine art while painting in the peripheries. It may be off the center, through persistence and dedication, their collective efforts may yet unravel something big and brighter for all of us to see.

Kalye Kolektib: Retelling Brown Homilies

BY JAY BAUTISTA |

The recent move of the President to make December 30 a working day for the first time in history did not only draw criticism from the general Filipino working class but also from a multitude of faithful who not only salute the martyrdom of Dr. Jose P. Rizal but revere him more than just our national hero in his a messianic destiny in Mt. Banahaw.

When Pope John Paul II first came to Manila in 1981, he even declared in one of his speeches that “we should all rejoice that the Philippines is being compared as the new Jerusalem where the new world peace of the world would emanate. It is also here where the mystical kingdom of God would eventually arise.”

Such is the mysticism of Mt. Banahaw and ongoing at the Nineveh Artspace in Sta. Cruz, Laguna is Jeru-Jerusalem, the second group exhibit by the Las Pinas-based art group Kalye Kolektib, appropriately tackling this theme. Nineveh could have been a more perfect venue considering the holy mountain was nearby.
I am Rex-al by Robert Besana

Tierra Santa or Vulcan de Agua

Emanating from the Kalye’s regular discussions, the show’s title Jeru meaning new, the exhibition is more than a Mt. Banahaw 101 as it alluded to what many prophesized that our country, with Mt. Banahaw at its center, as the new Jerusalem. Now a 2,188-meter national park, it will be the sacred place where the final judgment of man will come after the so-called Armageddon eventually happens.

Already an extinct volcano whose last eruption was in 1721, many devotees consider Mt Banahaw more than a storehouse of psychic energy but home to at least 17 religious churches that even has Christian names such as Ciudad Mystica de Dios and even celebrate an elaborate Catholic mass and own up a version of our national anthem as a prayer. But it is the mountain’s more than a hundred stations that center on a pilgrimage from the base of the mountain to the crater of the peak. Each pwesto may be any natural rock formation: boulders, waterfalls, pools of water, caves. It is believed that after death, the soul journeys up the mountain following the pilgrimage path. All pwestos are Biblical allusions, Kinabuhayan, Dolores, Santo Kalbaryo, Kweba ng Dyos Ama, and Balon ni Jakob.

It is Kalye’s view that our natives were not hard to convert to this folk Catholicism as they were already parallelisms in our early religion. “When the colonizers came, in fact, the Santo Nino that was shown by Magellan during the first mass in Limasawa may have similar features to that of the likha that was already being worshipped and prayed for by the natives. Understanding the ways of the ancestors will help our self definition as a people,” Kalye member Besana points out.

Early Catholic priests and nuns warned that going to Mt. Banahaw does not have the blessing of the Catholic Church. Even to this day, Filipinos are prohibited to visit faith healers because they said to be of the devil. Despite this word of caution, Filipino folk followed their faith than what was instructed in the pulpit.

In the book Soul Book, by Fernando Zialcita and Gilda Cordero Fernando, mentions “even non-Christians, priding themselves on their scientific and empirical backgrounds, may have criticized colonialism for destroying our indigenous belief systems, yet they look down on the way of the folk/ordinary, “not-so-educated” Filipinos as superstitious.” Devotees in Mt. Banahaw believed “it better to make the pilgrimage now, as a rehearsal than after death when the soul might lose its way. Significantly enough, the crater is the final destination. For our ancestors, craters and caves are entrances to the spiritual underworld.”

Suplinahan by Alfredo Esquillo Jr.

Brushstrokes of Faith

In Suplinahan, Alfred Esquillo essays that that one primarily communes with Mt. Banahaw to be cleansed by its waters. Also called Vulcan de Agua, Mt. Banahaw boasts of its many springs and waterfalls, the highest of which is in a 52-meter waterfall at the crater itself. For Esquillo, the splash of water both whips as it purify you. As one repents for his past sins, the body is relieved from the water’s current making you at peace with God. An allusion of a dove emanating from the splash doubles from this image to a higher meaning of equanimity. Notice how Esquillo’s work blends to that of Kalye’s overall aesthetic scheme of works.

The purifying dove again reappears in Espirtu Parakleto by Dennis Atienza. Story goes that when Jesus died, most of His apostles gathered for the last time. Looking at each other, they were as confused as to the redemption of their faith as well as the future of their direction as a group. Jesus took this opportunity to validate His claim as Lord to them that He sent the Holy Spirit in a form of a dove to cheer them up and unified them. For Atienza, this work was also his other way to show that our God is not boastful, not far, nor huge. He assumes a form that we all could identify with.

Espiritu Parakleto by Dennis Atienza

Contrary to what and how a person predominantly believes in, Talatandaan by Kirby Roxas literally outlines the human brain amidst the looming talisman eyes. As what one sees with his eyes you immediately is drawn liken to a computer that programs it for you for consumption and safekeeping. We may not be conscious but Roxas attests in this sort-of “creatively instructed manual” that any belief passes through one’s mind through our eyes more so if it is a big idea as religion. The credence is even Biblical -- as it is said believe and you will see. In Filipino folk symbolism, God is represented by an eye, inside the trinity shape of a triangle with one absolute message -- all things emanate as a rational, omnipresent thing.

For Archie Ruga, one should at first become vulnerable in emptying yourself as one enters the pwestos or altars in Mt. Banahaw. In his emphatic work Presentasyon shows his profile carved as the opening of a cave. Being the youngest in the group this work is a self portrait. Although already proven himself as a fine arts graduate, Ruga should be the most blessed having learned the most in the presence of established visual artists in Kalye as his mentors. This is the altar of his art, as it could be his own pwesto. He is wont to reap the most in this exercise as he has taken everything in stride. Ruga shows promise in his adaptive visual style.

Santong Boses (above) and Santong Byahe (last photo) by Kalye Kolektib

In his essay “Retablo of Credences” cultural anthropologist, Dr. Prospero Covar testifies, “millenarianism is a basic feature of Christianity. This has everything to do with Second Coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Man’s sinfulness delays His return. Thus another influence of our indigenous faith shows the choice of cultic figures such as our revolutionary heroes like Rizal having been deified and being worshipped; in the same manner as warriors eventually became gods in Greek mythology.”

Robert Besana’s I am Rex-al is a case in point as he focuses on this the central theme in Mt. Banahaw in upholding Rizal as the Christ, as some faithful even compare his life to Jesus, as our national hero as the new messiah. The name Jose Rizal literally means Jove Rex Al, God the King of All. For Besana, all religion, as in all culture, everything is assumed; all have their own place under the sun. Every people have the value acquired or validate their expression and for the 60 cults at the base of Mt. Banahaw, Rizal is their katuparan, or redemption of their fate.

Where the Streets Have No Name

Although this may only be their second formal exposure but for Kalye Kolektib members Alfredo Esquillo Jr, Robert Besana, Dennis Atienza, Alvin Cristobal, Kirby Roxas and Archie Ruga, the creative energy is just a continuation of their endless discussions in their constant pursuit in peeling off the many layers of our post colonial being. Especially for Esquillo, Besana, Atienza and Cristobal who have been close friends in their early teens in Las Pinas. It was primarily the influence of Esquillo that guided them in this endless search (even passion) in finding what comprises our pre-Christian and pre-Islamic composition that has been buried amidst this age of fast-paced globalization of our already smaller digitally interconnected world. The three all look up to “Esqui” as he was already winning art contests after another using the themes Kalye is well-versed with at present. Unlike other art groups that concerns themselves with personal stuff like love and the plurality of found objects, Kalye focuses itself with identity, faith, destiny, inquiry to myth-making.

“More than an art group, I see Kalye as a reunion. Having started out as friends” Esquillo contextualizes. He envisions “eventually we see the group as being community-based. Kalye because we all have diverse experiences in the streets however one direction or nagsasanga-sanga sa ibang endeavors.”

More than as a graphic device, Kalye incorporates contemporary prayers as texts. Adapting and even translating what were the belief forms used by the Spanish friars to subjugate our three hundred year-old blind conversion to religion. Kalye attempts to reclaim our main folk territories by turning around this influence of these religions to our own terms and even spiritual redemption. Kalye’s thesis is that our folk have retained much of our ancestor way of life. Their themes revolve around identity and spirituality, the response is visual which the group is strong.

Another powerful and unique artistic focus of Kalye is the shapes of their frames. For this show they have incorporated the glorieta where the heaven assumes the dome-like curve as the earth is represented by the solid base below. Integrating this into their artistic cause is Kalye’s use of the estampitas that viewers can bring home with them. Instead of the usual exhibit catalogues, they freely distribute these “art pieces” for everyone to take home. This eliminates the divide between the artist-audience as viewers are given estampitas to own . Kalye is testimony that as we do not have a word for art because our indigenous expressions are reflective and every thing we do is interconnected and there is no distinction between art and life, the way folks do.

Sta. Lucia by Alvin Cristobal

"Kaya nga Kalye to differentiate from being lofty and high brow. Mas malapit kami sa tao,” adds Roxas who may not be from neighborhood but was invited to join in.

Compared to other art groups everything is collaborative, however theirs is more inward, what they call kalooban, as oppose to outwards which is common to young contemporary artists these days. On their own they have already carved a niche in the current art scene having won major art competitions most specially Esquillo who is more like a big brother to the group. He opens his studio (informally called Esquinita) and serves as their home base. Within the group, all is democratic and open to criticism and to the functions of new media of expression. Their process is simple but as Cristobal mentions, they are all excited because you wouldn’t know what will come out until all pieces come together.

Esquillo puts it best when he says that they may use the formal spaces in a gallery but they see themselves more public in perspective as individually they have their own artistic preferences but collectively they want viewers to be visually aware that this is our culture and beliefs and it is something we can learn from or even lived for.

For Kalye Kolektib, what is Pilipino is his personhood or his pagkatao. As Mt. Banahaw keeps away those who are not yet ready for its secrets, unless you know who you are or what your faith has become of you. Through their art, Kalye is paving the road to those who want to see the light.

Jeru-Jerusalem is part of Nineveh Art Space 7th anniversary exhibition.

Chris Inton and His Air-conditioned Life

|By Jay Bautista

Inside the Singapore MRT’s glass-encased, well-lit, air-conditioned entity, one cannot help but loose oneself while unconsciously looking out at the dark urban wilderness of skylines with neon lights. For someone who may have experienced working abroad, this scene is typical. There’s something about being in a moving transportation like the MRT in a foreign land that makes passengers think blindly (or in this case, not think at all). This sudden appeal wrapped around one’s senses makes one almost numb, as he is cradled with the hush inside it while a lullaby-like timbre of an efficient train cannot be more soothing enough. As he looks patiently outside in a speedy-like sequence of a film being fast forwarded, we are certain his longing for home would be the current movie in his playlist.

Since 2000, Christian Inton has been living in Singapore and presently works as a senior graphic journalist for Reuters. He habitually experiences this scene on his daily train commute to his workplace. Against this melancholic metropolitan abyss, In Transit 01 is a study of contrasts of the continuing allegory of Filipino diaspora.

In Transit 01

In its accompanying piece, In Transit 02 is given more details in depiction and meticulously rendered in more realist colors. As foreigners abound the MRT in Singapore, the vast blackness out of the window seems like a reversed canvas filled with the same happy broken dreams and sad void longings for they all left behind. As rapid as the MRT zooms away in one sequential direction is their fervent wish to be home in their native land. that as fast as the MRT. Thus, in relation to how one perceives the two figures clutching their bags like security blankets, the presence of the smoke of velocity or the cloud of doubt could either be an enigmatic shroud “overcastting” with good intentions or a hale of fumes, confusing both the viewer (which could be you) who is seated in front of them. The MRT becomes more of a temporary escape more than a vehicle taking you to another destination. Being in the MRT may also seem a like respite to the preoccupation or quagmire we, including the viewer, are all in. The clouds or smoke which Inton has done could be very decorative, although one wonders if both have missed their destinations or would be asking if it was really worth the “longer train trip” at all.

In Transit 02

The numbing effect of blurry clouds on the main subjects in anonymity lures one in being abroad (or Singapore for Inton) with a possible vague myth of a better life. As one is drawn captive to both artworks, looking long and hard, one notices that we are all in this together -- the viewer in you who is in the MRT, and as you watch them, they watch you in the White Canvas gallery in Singapore or better yet, in one’s monitor such as what you are using now in Manila.

Tres is currently exhibited as part of the Philippine Art Trek in Singapore.