Tuesday, September 25, 2007 Crowd of three By Ritchie Landis Doner Quijano
THREE-MAN show, aptly titled Art of Three (A3), is a visual convergence that somehow calls for unity in the face of diversity.
Years ago, the trio of participating painters first crossed paths while finishing their masteral degrees in Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines-Diliman.
Soon after completion, they moved on to practice and establish their art in their homecourts. Now they are crossing paths again in the arena of an art gallery.
A3 opened last Friday, Sept. 21, at the newly renovated, expanded, and improved Bluewater Gallery inside the plush compound of the Maribago Bluewater Beach Resort. This art exhibition (ongoing until the mid-part of October) seeks to solidify the individual artist’s commonalities and delineate differences. Having come from different regions of the country, the triad of Arthur dela Cruz, Sio Montera and Aman Santos III intends the show to be representative in nature and character.
Dela Cruz hails from Davao, hence we’ll be seeing vignettes and episodes of splendor from his hometown.
The Visayas is represented by Montera whose turf is Cebu, and bringing his art from Manila is Santos. Though they trained under the sameprofessors in Diliman, they have many “differences” in their work and leanings. One is a representational practitioner, the other one an abstractionist, and the third, a painter of water-loving, androgynous figures.
Dela Cruz executes the usual Davao formula, making use of what the place is known and famous for. The paintings are pictorial, figurative and decorative in the grandeur of Davao’s flora and fauna, such as the regional symbols of orchids and eagles. And generally, dela Cruz’s works are not as wild as the wildlife on it.
It is Montera who tries to define the ultimate true and free expression of an artist by letting go of what the eyes normally see and comprehend by doing pure abstracts.
Santos’ art is the urban challenge of making way through nameless crowds where faces and identities become generic and somewhat featureless.
The show is like a microcosm of the nation’s entirety; composed of representations from three main geographic regions of the archipelago.
The three artists, who come from the country’s three major art centers of Cebu, Davao and Manila, assemble to provide us all a peek into their art’s directions, and a glimpse of art from their respective regions.
