July in Review: Five Unique Art Exhibits You May Have Missed

With July firmly in the rearview, the year continues to offer art lovers and connoisseurs alike a feast of different exhibits to enjoy. We covered many interesting exhibits this month, from the first exhibit in the country of a lauded minimalist painter to group exhibits that explore everything from stylistic choices to loneliness. 

And as we at BluPrint do each month, we wanted to give a shout-out at five unique art exhibits in Metro Manila we weren’t able to cover. These exhibits have interesting backstories and ideas that blossomed into compelling collections of art.  

Serendipity Flukes: The Kutkotan Diaries

Esteemed scholar and writer Elmer Nocheseda displayed some incredibly unique works of abstraction with his very first art exhibit, held at the Mono8 Gallery.

Much of his works utilizes round shapes, strong linework, and bright colors to create engaging images across the board. The work contains a sense of foreboding despite its brightness, with Nocheseda balancing it with muted tones and aggressive, repetitive patterns. 

Nocheseda created these “kutkot” or doodles at the onset of his diagnosis for Parkinson’s disease. Much of the work reflects his own struggles with the disease, and many he created during the so-called “serendipity flukes” during his struggle. The exhibit’s curator J. Sedfrey S. Santiago hopes that people can see how Nocheseda continues to live life to the fullest.

Sacred Shores

Artist Dengcoy Miel’s exhibit, which showed in Kaida Contemporary from July 14 to 31, is one of the many exhibits last July which commented on colonialism and its effect on society. Miel’s works riff on our own art and societal history to create strange and humorous images that comment on our current times. 

Like the previously-featured exhibit Territorial, the focus came about due to the ongoing conflict in the West Philippine Sea. Miel crafts some compelling images through his work, portraying the plight and poverty of our country in vivid colors and expressive poses. 

“Sacred Shores magnifies the discourse surrounding issues on ownership and territory,” the exhibit write up said. “[… He is] offering not only a cutting critique of the status quo, but also visual projections for us to contemplate on the forces at large and what our role can be […].”

Connecting Bodies, Breaths, and Minds: Nestor Olarte Vinluan’s 75th Year Part 2

Former UP College of Fine Arts Dean Nestor Olarte Vinluan showcased a new exhibit in Gravity Art Space from July 12 to August 10. It celebrates his strong legacy as an artist and an educator, with contributions from many artists across the Philippines. 

The works featured in the exhibit are hard to sum up due to its variety. There are paintings in the traditional sense, but the works certainly push the boundaries of defining art. The collection features sculptures made of wood, iron, and concrete. It also has mixed media pieces, compiling found items, photographs, photocopied journal entries, and more. 

It serves as a great tribute to a legendary figure in the art scene who contributed a lot to modern Philippine art. And, more than that, it works as a showcase for a summary of our art scene today, giving local artists their own space to shine together. 

IYKYK

This art exhibit by Jayson Oliveria showed at Artinformal from July 4 to August 1. It’s a strange and interesting exhibit, showcasing many small watercolor paintings formatted like stock photographs. In many of the works, Oliveria even adds faux watermarks to the paintings to sell the illusion. 

The paintings mix pop culture references and humorous images that mock society today. At times, some of the paintings even function as social commentary on consumerism. But mostly it intrigues due to its creative approach of mimicking stock photographs, and because of the craft that Oliveria puts into each of the jokes. 

Jojo Lofranco’s Recent Works

Exhibited at Finale Art File from July 4 to 27, Lofranco presented five recent abstract works. While there was no specific thematic idea around it, it demonstrated a precision and mastery of form that can be entrancing to look at. 

Lofranco created much of these works to showcase the many unique but uncommunicable ideas that exist in art. “It is a spontaneous conversation between the visceral and the cerebral as expressed onto canvas,” Rhett Hunter wrote for the write-up.

Indeed, there’s a certain craft to it that invites viewers to contemplate larger ideas, the things we know but cannot say. If anything else, these works display a dazzling skill in the attempt to communicate the indescribable.

Pursuing Creative Muses

In the end, these art exhibits don’t just give us a look at the Philippine art scene today. They also give us a strong idea of how vast the creative potential of the human being is. In a time when capitalists threaten to remove humanity from the creative process altogether, it helps to see such unique exhibits that embody the spirit of creativity in every human being today.

Related reading: Five Noteworthy June Art Exhibits You May Have Missed

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