Painting in Progress
1 to 31 May 2006
Mag:net Gallery Katipunan

Artists and their respective processes of art-making are literally on exh ibit at Mag:net Gallery Katipunan, at a month-long group show entitled Painting in Progress. Featuring paintings by eight young painters ( Alex Aguilar, Amy Aragon, Bembol de la Cruz, Ranelle Dial, Carlo Gernale, Lea Lim, Jay Ticar and Alvin Villaruel) in collaboration with art and documentary filmmakers (ST Exposure and Kidlat de Guia), Mag:net Gallery puts on display for viewers and visitors the very act and process of painting.

Painting in Progress uses a site-based process to unveil the pro duction process of the paintings on exhibit from May 16 to 30. From May 1 to 15, the gallery space is utilized by artists as a communal studio for the duration of gallery hours, transformed from a bare, white-washed room to a work space fil led with palletes, paint, and stools. The products of a two-week art-making session are then displayed at the exhibition proper for the test of the month.

While it may seem a nov el concept for gallery goers, the artists seem unperturbed by viewers and visitors, comparing it to their usual routines as art students at the university. Spectators to the unfolding progression of art-production, meanwhile, are able to ask questions first-hand and witness the technical procedures of finishing a painting.

The paintings finished at the gallery are diverse in terms of themes, con cepts, and concerns. Alex Aguilar, for instance, juxtaposes and composes sep arate pictures to come up with the figurative yet surreal images in the work entitled Sweet Tooth. Amy Aragon creates connotations of mechanization and popular culture through uniformly-sized and precise pastel polka dots, but juxtaposes these with the tangible textures of impasto painting. Carlo Gernale appropriates images for his paintings through cha racters culled from animation, while Jay Ticar uses visual and verbal all usions in the work Burning Bush. Alvin Villaruel, in the works Vent 1 and Vent 2, utilizes his already-familiar tec hnique of optically blurring familiar images, but this time returns to a more monochromatic and subdued palette.

Realism and figurative works also figure in the show. Lea Lim adheres to the site-based con cept of Paintings in Progress. Lim exhibits her own oil-on-canvas large-scale rendering of a photograph of her own feet, taken on May 1, 2006 (the start of the show) at the Mag:net Gallery floor. Bembol de la Cruz, on the other hand, eschews the use of pho tographs as a reference material and renders still life images from observing actual objects. De la Cruz carefully composes his renderings of a wooden crutch and other imp lements on neutral backgrounds. Ranelle Dial's work entitled Then What's Next? is a pho torealistic rendering of a discarded doll, mangled and maimed. Dial explores the images of dolls as metaphors for human mortality, as a tongue-in-cheek reminder at the grisly human rights violations that populate mass media and popular culture.

Documentary and art filmmakers ST Exposure group and Kidlat de Guia collaborate to doc ument the entire proceedings. Photograph stills, taken in time lapse mode, are used to capture the whole sequence and scenes behind art-production. This con timuum of images taken from May 1 to 15 is then juxtaposed with video clips from ST Exposure's archives. The sequences are then arranged into a col loborative film as part of the exhibition.

Painting in Progress opens on Tuesday, May 16, 6:30 PM , at Mag:net Gallery Katipunan. The show will run until May 31. For inquiries, please contact 9293191 or 4352631 (Malou) or email magnetcafekatips@yahoo.com.ph or visit www.magnet.com.ph