Tuesday, May 06, 2008 Living tribes By Ritchie Landis Doner Quijano
NOT a lot of us urban and modern Filipinos living in the cities have contact with minority groups, our native brothers.
We know most of them only through pictures. But for the very few of us who are exposed to native culture, we are left with the indelible experience of seeing their exotic lands and lifestyle.
Very few, indeed, are fortunate to have the chance of knowing and understanding the living proofs of our cultural past embodied in the lives and practices of indigenous people.
We are thankful to artists who have been inspired by these oft-forgotten Filipinos.
One of them is Jun Alfon, who has an ongoing show at the SM Art Center. It’s his 21st one-man-exhibit.
He calls the show “Mystical and Magical Mindanao V.” It is a colorful artistic exposition of the many tribes from the south.
Alfon has roots in Cebu, but has made Davao his home for several years now. It was there that he took a keen interest to show and highlight native and tribal culture in his paintings.
Alfon is now based in the capital city of the Philippines, but he still continues to champion native peoples through his art despite the very busy and modern environment of Manila.
The collection of ethnographic paintings act as visual vignettes of the lives of ethnic people in their full, ceremonial regalia as well as in their day to day activities.
For us city dwellers, this is as close as we can get to meeting and knowing their gentle ways.
Alfon’s works are in mixed media, figurative in form and content while narrative in its story-telling. The exhibition runs until May 15.
