Joining creative forces at the latest group exhibit in West Gallery (West Avenue, Quezon City) are 2006 CCP Thirteen Artists Award recipients Mariano Ching, Yasmin Sison-Ching, Lyra Garcellano, and Gary Pastrana, and contemporaries Geraldine Javier, Keiye Miranda-Tuazon, and Christina Dy. In The Way We Get By, which opens on July 11 and runs until July 29, each artist expresses different ways of coping, whether in assigning meanings or drawing from memories.
Mariano Ching continues to explore the layering of images and the multiple meanings they produce. Yasmin Sison-Ching’s “Tale Series” takes the point of view of a child on collective and personal memories and their fictive qualities. Geraldine Javier’s “Tom Waits’ Lullaby” series features bird images embroidered on fabric with background floral designs as substitutes for original living objects. Somehow this shows what is happening in many urban centers now, with more and more artificial objects replacing what used to be so abundant in nature.
Keiye Miranda-Tuazon situates her figures underwater. “It is entirely transformed into an illusionist space of color, the play of light suggesting the fluidity of water and its changing views and dimensions. The stark images and figures create a complex and resonating pattern, like bathing in a luminous glow of water.” The dreamlike images also suggest passing time and memory. “The sense of movement and light in the water gives the work and almost physical presence, like entering into a movement of thought or a state of total solitude,” adds Keiye.
Lyra Garcellano uses plastic letters glued on a white wall in a piece titled “Everybody’s Desperate to be Relevant.” “As We are Accosted by Our Own Mortality,” on the other hand, delves on meaning and meaningless.
Christina Dy uses large-scale drawings to show the various aspects of voyeurism.
Documentation
