All children have been told at one time or another by their mothers not to do certain things, go to certain places, or associate with certain people. But every child will have disobeyed at least one of these warnings, and the consequences will have shaped the people they will eventually become.

Strange Times is a loose chronicle of a girl named Lila who is continually disobeying her mother’s warnings. Choosing to err on the side of imagination and exploration, Lila takes risks and lives with the consequences, which can run from the dark to the delightful.

The exhibit is a collaboration between The Curious Studio’s Wiji Lacsamana and award-winning horror writer Yvette Tan, with Tan writing a sentence, Lacsamana painting what she envisioned, and Tan creating a story from the resulting painting and rendering it in calligraphy.

There are strange times in every child’s life, times when reality blurs with imagination. Most children forget this when they enter adulthood. Some, like Lila, chose to live with its scars.

The Collaborators

Wiji Lacsamana of The Curious Studio is a self-taught graphic designer, watercolorist and tattoo artist whose influences include Edward Gorey, Carson Ellis, Yelena Bryksenkova and Jillian Tamaki. The ocean, moon, whales and forest are recurring themes in her work, which constantly explores and intertwines the possibilities between graphic design, contemporary illustration and tattoos.

Yvette Tan writes about anything from food to fashion to personalities to travel. Her horror fiction has won numerous awards, and nowadays, tends to explore the link between food and being frightened.

Join us for the inaugural exhibit of PABLO X

Modified Either No In or Out

featuring the works of

Nemo Aguila
Bjorn Calleja
Rommel Celespara
Jigger Cruz
Don Dalmacio
Beejay Esber
Egg Fiasco
Edric Go
Dave Lock
Epjey Pacheco

The Artists will be presenting their trademark genre bending, shape shifting, stylish kleptomania and iconoclastic redefinition of what we might know as art, or collaboration, all the more, as street aesthetic.

December 7, 2012, Wednesday, at 7pm 2289 Pasong Tamo Extension

Photos by Migs Camacho

Paintings with sweet colorful characters tinged with idiosyncratic irony have become Calayag’s aesthetic signature. The viewer finds himself suspended in disbelief, as he witnesses the very same adorable creatures pounce, rip, stab, and tear out the hearts of rival beings for ownership of the imagination, of the dream, of the gift. In fact these innocuous looking characters that hide behind the façade of cuteness and gaiety belie the truth of their actions through random excursions of violence and betrayal. Perhaps this is Calayag’s nod to life’s complex shades of joy and its chromatic fugues of pain. In this unpredictable landscape of complex emotions and experiences, things alter their appearances: hands elongate to form ridges of a mountain, a mountain in the form of a female body, a large heart with frightening jaws of death housing innocents inside, or so they seem, in this malleable state of existence. This morphing world speaks much about Calayag’s practice of oil painting, where each stroke becomes a soft murmur of the heart that pumps blood bringing life into the brain, firing the imagination. Painting then captures the slowness of time as it is lived in the fullness of the moment. It is when time stops to allow the mind to expand, to allow consciousness to drift, to return to a time of bliss. According to Calayag, painting has provided him the only possible moment that reclaims that lost feeling of childhood, of innocence lost. In this forever magical moment, the painter conjures a world that only belongs to him, with symbols and figures that create their own narrative, weaving fantastic episodes that might portend of things to come or things to be. Thus by doing so, the artist reclaims the lost mantle of prophetic messenger, which stretches back to the dawn of humanity, as man becomes aware of his place in the world bearing a gift that allows him to cast the world according to his imagination, dreaming a world that can be made better through his craft, ultimately sharing this gift with others to make their dreams into a reality.

Arvin Flores

An Exhibition featuring the works of Allan Balisi, Dex Fernandez, Cos Zicarelli, Nile Pobadora and Mark Salvatus in celebration of Pablo’s 6th year Anniversary.

RESET/PLAY
Text by Gou de Jesus

Painter Jason Moss reclaims the human condition through a re-imagining of form, function and values, as he decodes and reconstructs old film photographs on canvas. The timeworn is honored anew on at least two levels. First, in mimicking the originality of the film grab, Moss engages his audience in a reflexive ritual, weaving ample visual cues in the paintings themselves as to his process and technique. Second, the re-rendering of memorable filmic moments celebrates light and shadow in a rich and bold palette—uncharacteristic Moss, some might say, but arguably a playful Moss, who breaks out of his aesthetic mannerisms into a deeper world within that resonates with many a movie moment.

And Moss is pleased with his romanticized versions of photographs, a collection that brings to the fore his own journey through time and its markers: triumphs, losses, mistakes and corrections. The self-critic/teacher also emerges in their creation, as Moss formulates commentaries on measurement and proportion embedded in the canvas, which in turn reflect perspectives of learning, stored thought and images. The paintings are equally informed by transitions and good doses of humor echoing the intrigues and uncertainties that plague every artist’s act of creation.

Pow Martinez: (b.1983, lives and works in Manila) Pow Martinez creates multimedia sound installations as well as expressionistic paintings. He often paints figures in a fetishistically naïve style exploring the terrain of man’s inhumanity to man and primitive mythologies in a hard-hitting and overtly humorous way. His music and sound installations reflects the same obsession with the outrageous as his music is coming from the tradition of the avante-garde. He uses elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. His noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically generated noise, randomly produced electronic signals, and non-traditional musical instruments. His music and sound installations may also incorporate manipulated recordings, static, hiss and hum, feedback, live machine sounds, custom noise software, circuit bent instruments, and non-musical vocal elements that pushes music towards the ecstatic.

Opening Reception
July 9, 2011 7:00PM

The works in the show include works by each artist as well as
works that reflect the participatory nature of each artist’s practice.

During the past two years we have been investigating the possibility of working together in The Philippines. In addition to an exhibition at Pablo Gallery, the aim of the project is to spend time and make works collaboratively, during the residency, based on our prior relation to The Philippines. We all have lived there for some time; Maria was born in The Philippines, Simon spent the years 1966-1970 and Lisa from 1975-1979.

We have been working on numerous projects and collaborations together over the past 10 years in Sydney. These projects are often particiapartory in nature and include a variety of media from assemblage, painting, video and drawing.
We have all been curators and have been involved in artist run initiatives; Briefcase, The Shangri-La Collective and Elastic projects. All which negotiate the site of exhibiting. Simon’s gallery in a briefcase made it possible for works to be seen in numerous spaces. (Briefcase opening at the Hollywood Hotel) This image appeared in a publication, Elastic Printed Projects, (The invitation image) which essentially was designed as a Gallery in a book. The Shangri-La Collective, curated by Maria, similarily used the Kareoke model to invite 30 artists to create new work through song. In response, Oh Yeah! (Seven Singers) was collaborative “song” produced by Lisa Andrew.

Opening Reception
July 16, 2011 7:00PM

Witnessing life as an intricate web of inter-personal connections, Julius Sebastian uses human expressions as stimuli for his latest collection of works entitled Between Liquid Chronographs And Subtle Glimpses, on view from July 16 (Saturday) to August 11 (Thursday) at Pablo. Constantly observing and attempting to draw insights from his personal experiences, Julius adds layers of depth to these situations and brings forth added weight and dimension to these moments. Time involuntary lapses in this plane we exist in, liquid chronographs that we have no control over, and Julius deems it crucial to chronicle its fleeting subtle glimpses, the things that stand out from day-to-day observations.

As for his choice of medium, Julius chose watercolors because he ascertains that it shares the innate spontaneity of the emotions he aims to capture. This fresh and lively batch attests to the optimism that Julius aims to infuse to contemporary events. Surrendering to the unpredictability of the medium, Julius allows the water to take the wheel and steer him towards surprising directions, leading to a mish mash of “happy accidents” that gleefully inhabits his works. Julius believes that life itself flows freely, that one need not pragmatize nor obsessively control it, as life is bound to unfold to reveal the bigger picture, a beautiful creation.

“Even the brilliant sunshine disclosed nothing intelligible. Things appeared and disappeared before their eyes in an unconnected and aimless kind of way” − Joseph Conrad, An Outpost of Progress

The “Manila Suite –Fenix Hotel” series of works are returning to a sequential structure similar to the works that the artist did in the eighties. Like them, they emerge before the confirmation of the difficulty of concentrating on one sole image on feeling which is conformed in time in a polyhedral way, and because of that it must be expressed in its unstable multiplicity. Matisse confessed his lack of interest for chess arguing that he felt “incapable of playing with symbols that never change”; that versatility of the symbol is thus recognized positively as a manager of new meanings, and it does not matter what the grounds of uncertainty are like that we are introduced to. This works turns out to be a type of incomplete storyboard because it plays with the conventional logic narrative and nothing is definitive in its proposals. Like an ad infinitum lengthy joke (because we have forgotten its outcome) prolongs its conclusion declaring the impossibility of expressing or grasping what gets away from us. It is like the water of Conrad’s river, which seems to emerge from nothing in order to flow in no direction.

Curro González (Seville 1960) is without any doubt one of the most important painter from the eighties.

His first works follow the pictorial mode of expressionism which peaked in the eighties. Collage, puzzle and a dialogue between different fragments are present in his work as well as elements of an almost sculptural language which tend to create a whole in which the materials used – such is their prominence that they spread beyond the frame of the painting – take a leading role.

The work of Curro González is featured in the most important Spanish collections and museums, such as the Fundacion La Caixa, The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, the collection of the Bank of Spain, Artium Museum of Vitoria and the Andalucian Centre for Contemporary Art.

CV
Website

The show is the first solo exhibition of the photographer slash portraitist Paolo Ruiz. In this display, he showcases portraits of people whom he believes best represent the significant facets of his being – music, visual art, and the combination of both.

If there is something that Paolo Ruiz has learned in the course of his career as a photographer, it is to really love your subjects, and to photograph the subjects that you really love the most. As a result, he gave himself the liberty to try out different techniques and styles to achieve his goal for the exhibition, and along the process, tried to capture the whole experience of actually capturing the subjects in his photographs.

All things considered, every frame in this exhibition corresponds to an imperative aspect of who he is now. And he would never have it any other way.

About the Artist

Paolo Ruiz wasn’t always a photographer by profession.

Before getting bit by the (shutter)bug, he worked as a web designer for a design firm in Ortigas, Pasig. He eventually moved up the proverbial ladder to become the firm’s art director.

His creative calling, however, changed almost instantly the moment he took hold of his first camera. He was even more motivated to pursue photography when his peers from the same industry expressed their interest to work with him.

Since then, Paolo has been relentless and aggressive in his efforts, eager to improve his skills and further develop a style he can truly call his own. The creative standards he sets for himself are high, if only to ensure the high quality of his output.

The time he has spent behind the lens has been time well spent. His photos, particularly in the field of portraiture, continue to speak volumes, often capturing individuality at its more raw and honest form.

When not clicking away, Paolo immerses himself in the world of music, contributing his skills to various bands of the local indie scene. He also sometimes returns to his design roots–you may have seen his recent works in different magazines, blogs, album packaging, and the like.

On ordinary days, this more-than-ordinary guy roams the urban streets with his trusty black backpack, iPod plugged to his ears; he even swags a fedora hat once in a while. This guy has no plans of stopping just yet, because as far as he knows, there is much life left to be photographed, more moments waiting to be captured, more arresting beauty to be immortalized.

paoloruiz.com | iloveportraits.tumblr.com | trippymanila.wordpress.com

Words by: L. Claustro