How is contemporary art like swallowing a live chicken?
I don’t know, I just wanted a title with a hook.
When one hears the title “Strip 2011: Painters As Photographers”, the mind automatically goes off on a riff: Plumbers As Photographers, Undertakers As Photographers, Insurance Agents As Photographers, Nuclear Physicists As Photographers. What the hey.
But yesterday I dropped by Silverlens Gallery to see the works being hanged and it became clearer.
The paintings of Yasmin Sison and Geraldine Javier have always looked like photographs to me. When I saw these photos I actually thought they were paintings.
They are, in fact, photographs. Yasmin Sison’s work makes me feel like I’ve walked into some fairy tale universe—mysterious, enchanted, pretty, foreboding. The same is true of these pictures. Something has happened in them. Those chairs are alive (and breakdancing).
Geraldine Javier, who is having a one-woman exhibition in Seoul next month, produced these pictures of dead chickens. Why of all subjects did you choose dead chickens? I asked her.
Because my folks had a poultry farm, she said, and my chore was to hold the chickens by the neck while their throats were slit.
There’s a visceral connection. I must say that as dead chickens go, this one is beautiful.
This photo is also of a dead chicken, rendered in flowers.
Strip 2011: Painters As Photographers features the work of Patricia Eustaquio, Nona Garcia, Geraldine Javier and Yasmin Sison, and is curated by Rachel Rillo. The exhibition opens today with a reception at Silverlens from 6-9 pm. At the same time, Claiming a Piece of Paradise and Facebook, 41 new aquarelles by Gilda Cordero-Fernando, opens at Silverlens SLab Gallery in the same building. Both shows will run from April 27 to May 28, 2011.
Silverlens is located on the 2nd floor of YMC Building 2, 2320 Pasong Tamo Extension, Makati City. Telephone 816 0044. For more information visit silverlensphoto.com.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
April 27th, 2011 at 01:17
I always find Nona Garcia’s paintings so photorealistic so I can’t imagine what her pieces here would look like. I must see.
April 27th, 2011 at 07:13
Completely non sequitur, but here’s a list of the bargain books I’ve been reading lately:
1. David Letterman’s Top Ten List, hardcover, P120 (fin)
2. Jay Leno’s Headlines, hardcover, P120 (fin)
3. Tales for the Midnight Hour, paperback, P10 (fin)
4. 13 Ghost Stories, paperback, P10 (fin)
5. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, paperback, P15
6. Jeff Foxworthy’s Redneck Dictionary, paperback, P15
Werd.
April 28th, 2011 at 12:49
this is the first time i’ve read about these artists..i don’t know exactly how this is done but the works look like that of sir vic sison, a paintographer..