Maverhick: Casa Real

Retazo and broken things

THE furniture maker’s son gathers the unused timber scattered around his father’s small workshop – the discarded remains of the day’s work.

These heavy planks of kamagong stained rich auburn, bright and vivid chips of narra, and countless other slats of wood in deep earthy shades and tones, otherwise would have been left on the cutting room floor to rot or be used for kindling, are collected and kept by the furniture maker’s son to be arranged in a pile in one corner.

You see, he feels a certain kinship to retaso and broken things: these scarred pieces of wood with their grains like heart lines and veins, because he sees in them glimpses of beauty and potential most people may fail to notice.

The furniture maker’s son holds up the cut up fragments, seeing wings and roses hidden just beneath their surface, just waiting for someone passionate enough to set them free.

“I want viewers to reflect when they see my artworks and hopefully find snatches of themselves in it,” shares the 30-year-old Jeanroll Ejar of his first solo show, Retazo.

A devoted sculptor, Ejar has been immersed in the craft since he was in high school, when he had to work shifts as a furniture maker at the age of 13 to support himself through night classes.
Ejar shares he learned the skills at an early age from his father and mother who ran a struggling furniture businesses in Negros which they brought along with them when they moved to Iloilo.

He had really wanted to apply to the Iloilo National High School (INHS) School for the Arts, but his family didn’t have the means. Ejar graduated from the INHS night class in 2002, but coming up with money for college was another struggle.

“Usually kung mamangkot sila kung ano imo na-graduate kag wala ka masabat, tulukon ka lang nila babaw dalum,” relates Ejar, who had to drop out of college, lacking the finances to finish his degree. “May ara man kami i-offer, di nila dapat kami pag-ilook down, hindi nga kay wala kami sing privileges nga ila na-enjoy, amo lang kami ni, asta dira lang kami.”

And indeed Ejar has proven himself strong against adversity, coming out on top of numerous art competitions despite being deprived of the education that should have been his right.

It was in 2005 when Ejar started experimenting, not just using wood for furniture, but as a medium for art. Ejar shares that he would cobble together the scraps and retaso timber around his father’s small workshop, so he could use them for his own projects.

In fact, all of the wood used for this first solo show of his were discarded pieces and planks, repurposed and carved into intricate sculptures by the steady hand of a passionate artist.

Most striking in the exhibit are “Hit Me Love” and “Hit Me Wisdom” – anatomical carvings of a heart and a brain, recurring symbols in the show, tied down to dart boards by kalat strings, rose-tipped arrows piercing them in every direction.

Also fascinating is Ejar’s affinity to flight, “Set Free” features several figures behind locked cages and a lone winged heart that has managed to mount an escape, “Soar High You and I” with brains doubling as balloons carrying heavy hearts, and “Sow Love, Reap Love” depicting birds in the air dropping heart-shaped seed to a crimson field of roses.

But the main piece, Ejar shares, is his favourite entitled “Fix Yourself” and its zigsaw puzzle man trying to stitch himself back togethet with a red thread.

“Daw ginakay-o mo imo kaugalingon,” explains Ejar. “Tanan man kita may mga personal nga bagay nga ginaagyan, kung may mga problema ka nga hindi ka ka-move on, hindi ka dapat malugmok, hindi ka dapat mag-stay dira, dapat magbakas ka man para mag-bag-o, para madula ang burden nga imo ginadala”

Ejar shares that with his father’s advance age, the man who taught him his craft, now finds it difficult to carve.

“Gusto ko makabulig sa mga parents ko. Through sa akun art nakita ko nga masadya sila, hopefully ang gina-obra ko makabulig man sa ila”

Retazo explores the bittersweet aspects of life, delving on melancholic yet hopeful memories of love and family, playing on the dynamics of the mind and the heart.

“Dapat buhaton mo kung ano gid ang love mo,” shares Ejar, who went through so much in his life, yet remains radiant and optimistic. “Obrahon mo kung ano gid ara sa imo taguipusuon.”

Retazo, Jeanroll Ejar’s first solo show is on exhibit for the public at the Casa Real Gallery at the Iloilo Provincial Capitol. It is part of a series of shows building up to the 2016 Visayas Islands Visual Arts Exhibition and Conference (VIVA ExCon) to be hosted by Iloilo this Nov. 17 to 20.

Photos by Casa Real Gallery / Christian Evren Gimotea Lozañes

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, by Rhick Lars Vladimer Albay

Art

Kat Malazarte's Peaceful Defiance

THERE is softness in her strokes.

Her works — titled “Purity,”“Innocence,”“Inner Silence,”“Lotus”— evoke femininity and serenity.

Her subjects are seemingly caught in moments of deep thought and reflection, trapped in the ambers that are her canvasses.

These creations by Anne Catherine “Kat” Malazarte adorn the walls of the gallery of Casa Real de Iloilo, the old provincial capitol, as part of her first solo exhibit, “Peaceful Defiance.”

Eight of her works are on display, painted in different mediums and bearing different shapes and sizes, each representing the virtues the artist wants to preserve.

“The eight paintings depict the values and attributes I hold dear and protect: purity, innocence, chastity, modesty, inner silence, contemplation, and state of nothingness,” says Malazarte, a fourth-year fine arts student at the University of San Agustin in Iloilo City.

“While [I exist] with opposing environment and people, these attributes remain intact like a lotus flower,” she muses.

Most of Malazarte’s works have women, some with striking resemblance to her, as subjects.

This is most noticeable in “Purity,” a portrait of a woman clutching a white cloth against her chest, painted on circular wood — a unique substitute for the usual canvas.

“Lotus,” the largest painting in the collection, shows a woman in deep sleep.

“Modesty,” on the other hand, was a woman clad in traditional attire, a scarf around her hair, golden patterns emerging from her closed eyes.

“Peaceful Defiance”reveals the manifold personalities of a young female visual artist — calm and collected, lost deep in thought, glowing with the intensity of gold.

It is part of a series of exhibits the Iloilo Visual Artists Collective is putting up leading to the Visayas Visual Artists Exhibition and Conference in November 2016.

The exhibit, which started on Nov. 27, runs through Dec. 19 this year at the Calle Real Gallery.

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, by Rhick Lars Vladimer Albay

Advocacy

Tumandok Threads

IN Kinno Florentino’s vision for Iloilo, the past and the future blend seamlessly into a hablon dress. He sees Iloilo’s women clad in garb inspired by our province’s Panay-Bukidnon communities, standing tall and proud against the city’s most iconic sites ¬– the Arroyo Fountain, Calle Real, the Molo Mansion ¬¬– their eyes fiery, staring fearlessly into the future.

Tubok, named after the Tumandok / Panay-Bukidnon tradition of ornate embroidery Panubok, is the first solo exhibit and fashion project of Kinno Florentino, a fourth-year Fine Arts student of the University of San Agustin. In Tubok, Kinno adds a unique spin to our province’s indigenous traditional costume, envisioning them worn by the modern Ilongga, all the while encouraging the preservation of local customs.

“I wanted to innovate the clothing, but still keep in mind Ilonggo culture,” said Kinno, expressing that fashion is his favorite art medium. “Panubok is one of the many unknown icons of Panay identity, and [it] should be learned [by coming] generations.”

Kinno shares he was once frustrated that Visayas’ indigenous people (IP), especially the communes of Central Panay, were not given as much attention as tribes from Luzon and Mindanao. Finding out about our island’s Panay-Bukidnon communities, he was awestruck by their vibrant and distinct customs.

For research and to stay true to the Tumandok tradition, Kinno visited the IP community in Barangay Garangan, Calinog four times in a span of six months, immersing himself in their culture. What he learned was the art of traditional embroidery and how it has been passed down from generation to generation for more than hundreds of years.

“[I saw that] through Panubok, our ancestors were not only able to share their traditions but also pass down knowledge and education,” recalls Kinno who sees his exhibit as a way to stir greater conversation about our province’s indigenous people.

A self-described “ambitious and demanding perfectionist,” Kinno expresses that he had to fight through a lot of time constraints to make his show perfect – finishing the fashion pieces in just over a month, and completing the all the wall-mounted paintings with just a week’s notice.

Kinno used local products to design his dresses, mainly the famed hablon of Miag-ao, embroidering them with traditional ornate patterns inspired by the Panay-Bukidnon panubok. “Each Panubok pattern has an exact meaning and is usually associated with animal features such as bird’s eyes, and snake skins,” shares Kinno.

To complement his fashion show, Kinno translated his designs to canvas. “The paintings of these clothes worn by Ilongga models set in different Iloilo Heritage sites will show how the modern women embrace their ethno-cultural identity and independence through fashion,” expressed the young artist.

Kinno dedicates his first solo exhibit to the Panay-Bukidnon community, showing earnestness to instilling a sense of Ilonggo identity and culture in coming generations. “It is important to preserve the identity of the Panay-Bukidnon and the stories that they tell,” muses Kinno, his eyes fiery, staring fearlessly into the future.