Fifteen women in their various fields of endeavor pay homage, through their art, to their Alma Mater the College of the Holy Spirit which is celebrating its centennial anniversary this year. “High Spirit”, the visual art exhibition can be viewed at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) Pasilyo Carlos V. Francisco (Little Theatre Lobby) and Pasilyo Vicente Manansala (2F Hallway Gallery) starting February 1.
The exhibit was organized by Pollack-Krasner art grantee Lenore RS Lim who also heads the CHS Golden Jubilarians class, with the artistic input of CCP Thirteen Artists and CCP Centennial Honors for the Arts awardee Imelda Cajipe Endaya. Over a year ago, they made a public call for art from among CHS alumnae. Artist-colleagues from different parts of the world responded and submitted art proposals. The selection committee, which includes CCP Visual Arts Director, Boots Herrera, came up with works that represent the spirit of excellence in various styles and modes of articulation.
Aurora Go Bio Shakespeare, an industrial and graphic designer from Mallorca, Spain, participates with a series of colorful abstract floral forms that symbolize empowered femininity. Chi Panistante, an accomplished art director from Dubai, interprets with a strong Biblical perspective the dynamism of daily life in the Arab state through her disciplined circular compositions. Athena Santos Magcase Lopez, painter and children’s book illustrator from New Jersey, presents her landmark illustrations for The Magic Jeepney and a mixed media collage This is Betty Makoni, about the founder of the Girl Child Network in Zimbabwe. Mimi Tecson, one of the most exciting young visual artists today, returns from a three-month art residency in Yokohama, Japan, to show her bottled pop culture assemblages entitled Street Series which explore the connection between her personal emotions and memory.
Rhoda Recto, printmaker, painter, and professor at UST, uses the “Letras y Figuras” genre to interpret the poems on Batangas and Quezon landscapes written by the nationalist statesman Claro M. Recto. Emi Masigan Mercado, art teacher, theatre director, and painter exhibits her delightful portraits of two of her best friends as well as contemporary images of indigenous women. Celine G. Borromeo, CHS professor, interior designer, graphic artist and writer, exhibits her book illustrations For Now and Lifetimes Ago and Circles with Open Ends. Rona Buenaseda-Chua, art teacher of the Rona’s Art Center fame, exhibits her delicate pencil and watercolor paintings of fishes and still life in her best naturalist style.
Elaine Ongpin Herbosa, plein-air painter and owner of the gallery L’Arc en Ciel shows her paintings of interiors and a still life. Spanish teacher Maria Antonia Gonzalez-Cruz who first turned to calligraphic painting as a stroke patient’s therapy, exhibits her remarkable Chinese paintings. Tiffany Elaine Ty, a marketing executive who loves doing digital photo montage will exhibit her canvas “Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder”.
The artists of High Spirit take this opportunity to honor two late colleagues in the arts whose work are included in the show: Maria Gracia Gargantiel of the Manila Cultural Office and Rosita Tayag Natividad of the New York University. Gargantiel passed on in 2010; her pastel paintings of lush marshes and waters were lent to the exhibition by her family. Tayag Natividad, who had arranged that her early black-and-white lithographs be exhibited, very recently passed away at age 83.
Altogether, the pictures at the High Spirit exhibition are meant to inspire its viewers into looking at art as a creative, humanly integrative process. The exhibition runs up to March 24. The Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) is located at Roxas Boulevard corner Vito Cruz Street in Manila. Admission to the exhibits is free; Tuesdays to Sundays at 9-6 pm and during theatre performance intermission.
For more information, visit www.culturalcenter.gov.ph, email ccp.exhibits@gmail.com or call the CCP Visual Arts and Museum Division at (+632) 8321125 local 1504 and 1505, or (+632) 8323702.
