Fixation Exhibition

                                                Convergence II, mixed media, 2014 

Fixation at KAIDA Contemporary

 Fixation gathers works that evoke the obsession of featured artists Demosthenes Campos, Noell El Farol, Jethro Jocson, Jemina Reyes and Pinggot Zulueta to express their concepts, sensibilities and life principles through abstract painting. Colors, forms and lines are interpreted in myriad renditions, visually enticing the audience to explore the depths of artistic expression.

In Noell El Farol’s Stratigraphy series, he explores the recovery process in archaeological practice in retrieving artifacts with a painstaking process involving wet sieving and flotation. El Farol manually produces handmade paper from juice and milk packages and collected papers from studio works, then marks them with natural pigments. As such, the output may be considered as field notes with its own set of recovered, then reconstructed, footprints.

Jethro Jocson, on the other hand, continues to delve into his scrutiny of value and worth as he questions "If matter is anything that occupies space and has weight, what matters most?" in Perseverance and Compatibility with process colors carefully swathed on stark white canvas.

In Demosthenes Campos’ Detached, he halves his plane of textured and unbleached Titanium White with a floating patch rendered in different colors.

Jemina Reyes, meanwhile, in Beyond, fixates on the spiritual. She closes off the center of her painting with a light border suggesting that the physical world is bound by limits, yet there are things beyond the human plane of awareness.

Pinggot Zulueta introduces a network of thin lines forming a multi-planed enclosure that seemingly captures blocked off shapes and dashes in Convergence 11, and utilizes slashes and stripes that give a visual rendering of beats and free rhythms in Straight Line from the Heart.  

Whether inspired by processes used in archaeology, valuing worth in matter, minimalist detachment, longing for the beyond, or simply celebrating bursts of lively colors and musicality in form, the paintings are exposed to one's personal signification -- interpretation fully depending on the viewers, their compulsions and inclinations, what they hold fast and what they are willing to let go of.

Fixation will be on show until November 12, 2014. Kaida Contemporary is located at 45 Scout Madriñan St., South Triangle, Quezon City. For inquiries, please contact +637090289 or +639279297129, and email kaida529@yahoo.com.ph.

Langkawi Art Biennale 2014, Malaysia

with former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad at the Langkawi Art Bienalle 2014.

Art in Migration

Text by Jacky Lynne A. Oiga

October 13, 2014

http://www.mb.com.ph/art-in-migration/

Visual artist and photographer Pinggot Zulueta along with other renowned and up-and-coming Filipino artist come together to represent the Philippines at the Langkawi Art Biennale 2014 (LAB 2014) that opened yesterday and will run until Oct. 21 at the Langkawi Lagoon Resort in Pulau Langkawi, Kedah.

The first Malaysian Art Biennale, LAB 2014 was organized by the ArtMalaysia Association, supported by the Ministry of Tourism and Culture Malaysia to see out possibilities for expression in contemporary art within the context of Langkawi by showcasing the work of local Malaysian artists and international artists from over 40 countries. It is Malaysia’s first distinguished platform for international dialogue in fine and contemporary art. LAB2014 aspires to offer new exposure for artists, art associations, and businesses, at the same time infusing deeper public engagement with the arts.

With the theme “Migration,” Zulueta, together with Darby Alcoseba, Frank Caña, Rosscapili, Joel Cristobal, Buds Convocar, John Dinglasa, Joel E. Ferraris, Merlito Gepte, Rick Hernandez, Rem San Pedro, Celso Pepito, Fe Madrid Pepito, Simkin de Pio, Jik Villanueva, and Sonia Yrastorza, each came up with three art pieces that reflect cultures that meld together in a constant state of influx. The theme is also symbolic of artists coming together to a new destination that offers nature, beauty, and inspiration.

Among the activities lined up for the 10-day biennale are Peletakan Orang-orang (Interactive Installation of Scarecrows), Gotong-royong Angkat Rumah (an old Malaysian custom where villagers gather to help some move his house, similar, albeit purely literal, to the Filipino concept bayanihan), and the Malaysian and Chinese exhibition “Friendship is Forever.”

2View Exhibition

Ross Capili, Pinggot Zulueta celebrate abstraction in joint show

By Dexter R. Matilla 

Philippine Daily Inquirer8:45 am  

Monday, September 1st, 2014

    

Ross Capili and Pinggot Zulueta are stalwarts in photography and photojournalism, but both have also a growing abstract art practice.

Individually, they translate the process of photography into abstracted forms that reveal intellectual depth and technical talent.

The exhibition “2View” brings these two artists together for the first time. It will open at Galerie Francesca-Megamall today, Sept. 1, at 6 p.m.

Multiawarded artist  Capili uses the flowing nature of Asian calligraphy as an inspiration for his new works. Using the spontaneity associated with Chinese and Japanese calligraphy, Capili works with glass and lacquered acrylic to bring about a different kind of art.

The series was first conceptualized in 1998 for a show in Ayala Museum. However, the lacquer fumes were difficult to deal with. So Capili spent the next few years working on the series, and the works in the exhibition will be the first time the public can view them.

With over 30 exhibits, Capili’s works in the exhibit not only reflects on the entirety of his oeuvre, but his philosophy as well.

“Floating Thoughts,” for instance, gives off a “soft” touch and radiates tranquillity.

“Song Imprints” is an abstraction of what Capili feels when listening to one of his cherished vinyl records.

Producing portraits of newsmakers is hardly an effort for Jose “Pinggot” Vinluan Zulueta. But then again, this veteran lensman is hardly just that. How he got his break in newspaper drawing editorial cartoons is known mostly to his colleagues and close friends so his foray into painting was to be expected.

Zulueta would be the first to admit to uncertainty as to how his abstract works would be accepted by the audience. Even before joining the press, he was already a painter of representational works along the Social Realist vein.

His representational phase extended to his abstraction.

“It was full of human drama and emotion,” Zulueta says. “I was conscious to try and evoke Social Realism, and now that I look back, I realize my works were sad.”

In his upcoming show with Capili,  Zulueta is now more freewheeling as an abstractionist. Now, the photographer-artist concentrates more on the process rather than meaning.

His fascination with lines and geometry continues and while these elements are the main focus of this new collection, the vibrant colors that encompass the surrounding space prove that Zulueta has evolved as an abstractionist who’s no longer constrained by fear and uncertainty.

“I’m just enjoying painting now,” Zulueta says. “The works are nonrepresentational and it has no narrative and I guess as I grow older I realize that the struggle is over and it’s only right that I am able to express myself through this. It’s my commitment to myself.”

Capili understands this sentiment quite well. He deals with a medium that’s difficult to control primarily for its permanence.

“It’s irreversible, using lacquer and enamel,” Capili explains.

Capili says he is guided by the spontaneity of intuitive calligraphy.

With layers upon layers, Capili says he builds up his work into a complete piece that’s both fragile and intimidating. The separation of colors gives credence to his attempt to create a painting within a painting.

“It is an intuitive expression in abstract,” Capili says. “Different medium, different approach. You can see the abstractionism but it’s not the type that disturbs.”

The show  “2View” will serve as a precursor to the two artists’ participation in the 2014 Langkawi Art Biennale and the 2014 Malacca International Contemporary Art Festival in Malaysia. “2View” will run until Sept. 15.

Galerie Francesca is at 4/F,  SM Megamall Building A, Mandaluyong City. Call 5709495; e mail galeriefrancesca.mega@gmail.com.

http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/170304/ross-capili-pinggot-zulueta-celebrate-abstraction-in-joint-show

Galerie Francesca presents 2 View

"2 VIEWS" TWO-MAN EXHIBIT OF WORKS BY ROSS CAPILI AND PINGGOT ZULUETA OPENING AT GALERIE FRANCESCA  ON SEPTEMBER 1

Abstraction requires a certain mindset. The artist needs to balance his emotions with an affinity for his chosen medium. It also requires a desire to experiment and push the boundaries of what his practice can accomplish. What more when two abstractionists hold an exhibition together?

Philosopher Jean Piaget said that, "Reflective abstraction, however, is based not on individual actions but on coordinated actions." Perhaps this is the best way to describe the two man show of artists Ross Capili and Pinggot Zulueta. The two artists are stalwarts in the field of photography and photojournalism, but both have burgeoning abstraction practices that are complex and highly nuanced. Individually, they translate the process of photography into abstracted forms that reveals both intellectual depth and technical talent. The resulting show is a combination of these two practices of like-minded artists, using their artworks as a staging point into a larger discourse into the nature of balance.

The exhibition, entitled "2 Views," brings these two artists together for the first time. It will open at Galerie Francesca in Megamall on September 1 at 6:00PM. Galerie Francesca is located on the 4th floor of SM Megamall Building A, Mandaluyong City. They may be reached through their landline phone at (632) 570-9495 or email at galeriefrancesca.mega@gmail.com.

Multi-awarded artist Ross Capili uses the flowing nature of Asian calligraphy as an inspiration for his new works. Using the spontaneity associated with Chinese and Japanese calligraphy, Capili works with glass and lacquered acrylic to bring about a different kind of art. The series was first conceptualized in 1998 for a show in Ayala Museum. However, the lacquer fumes were difficult to deal with. So Capili spent the next few years working on the series, and the works in the exhibition will be the first time the public can view them. 

With over 30 exhibits under his belt in a career that spans decades, Capili's works in the exhibit not only reflects on the entirety of his oeuvre, but his philosophies as well. "Floating Thoughts," for instance, can be viewed through the prism of emotional calm. Like many of the works, the painting wasn't planned, giving it a "soft" touch that radiates with tranquillity.  Likewise, "Song Imprints," is an abstraction of what Capili feels when listening to one of his cherished vinyl records. 

The works of Jose "Pinggot" Zulueta, on the other hand, is an evolution of his abstract practice that now examines the role of geometric figurations to the concept of balance and harmony. The UST-educated Zulueta is ostensibly known for his Manila Bulletin series on the work spaces of visual artists, Zulueta's concern is of the multidude of perspectives that abstraction can afford. "Chasing Lines I" is representative of this approach. Against a purely abstracted backdrop, Zulueta uses lines in ever-changing viewpoints that allows the viewer to consider the very nature of perspective.

The works of both Ross Capili and Pinggot Zulueta come together in this one-of-a-kind exhibition that also serves as a precursor to their participation in the  2014 Langkawi Art Biennale and the 2014 Malacca International Contemporary Art Festival in Malaysia. "2 Views" is an art event that definitely should not be missed. 

‘What you see is what you see.’ - Frank Stella

PREVIEW

Above Us Only Sky, 3x5ft, mixed media, 2014

“Line is a rich metaphor for the artist. It denotes not only boundary, edge or contour, but is an agent for location, energy, and growth. It is literally movement and change - life itself. “ – Lance Esplund

The words of noted art critic Lance Esplund perhaps best represents the natural evolution of Pinggot Zulueta’s work into what it is today. His latest collection depicts the product of his latest visual contemplations. Coming fresh from an exhibit last year in which he explored connecting his impressionist figurative works with diptych lines. Since then, Zulueta has been fascinated and drawn to lines. 

Lines, being the very foundation of all artworks, became the very idea that he wanted to bring into the foreground as it is the corner stone of every image. In a way, as Zulueta goes back to the basics, removing all pretentions and reverting to the raw skeleton of every artwork, it is evident that he is also unleashing the most primal elements of his emotions in color and strokes to contrast the disciplined and imposing connotation of the line.

The geometric structures become the very subject of his collection as central in composition, he pays  homage the ever dependent and often under appreciated line. 

There are no pretentions to his work, it does not claim any narrative or message, it has no hidden meanings  or manipulations, no agendas or accusations. It simply revels in the very being of aesthetics, and in the words of Frank Stella, ‘What you see is what you see.’

Chasing Lines

Chasing Lines, triptych, 30x102in., mixed media, 2014

Makatulog Ka Pa Kaya? at the Crucible Gallery

New Works by Pinggot Zulueta in collaboration with Virgilio S.Almario, National Artist for Literature at the Crucible Gallery, SM Megamall, Mandaluyong City. November 5-17, 2013

About the Exhibition

VISION AND VERSE

By Patrick D. Flores

Poet and photographer come together to reflect on images. These are scenes of everyday life in the dense city taken by Jose Zulueta, speaking of conditions that are testimonies as much to sordidness as to survival. They are portraits of how people have been refused and how they have prevailed. This situation is a demolition of houses and thus evokes homelessness and eviction, the struggle to live with dignity and the authority of the state to carry out a policy on housing and urban development. 

  

The photographer keenly registers their presence and discerns a part of their sentiment. This is the first moment of the gesture: the rendering of the stark urban world in black and white. As if the latter were so benighted and so explicit, he chooses to mediate the imagination. The second moment of the impulse is to offer an overlay of artistic disposition: graphic details of geometric motifs in acrylic paint that invariably frame, disrupt, adorn, embroider the photography. (What is the urge of this intervention, we might ask. Is this a sign of optimism? Or just index of experiment?) The photographic image, however, has undergone levels of mediation itself: it is printed through ink jet and then painstakingly transferred on canvas with the aid of emulsion. The tedious toil that goes with it is the photographer’s commitment to an artistic process.

Finally, the third moment comes with words. The poet Virgilio S. Almario, the National Artist who is also known as Rio Alma, writes around the edges of the photographs telling verses from his copious corpus; these converse with the images that try to elicit sympathy and engagement. They look like marginalia but are actually central to sensing the ties between the languages of light and thought, reality and realization, the handwriting of a poet and the vision of the photographer, both grasping with patience the woes of the world.

Photography and Poetry 

By Jasmine T. Cruz

BusinessWorld / November 12, 2013

AN EMACIATED child with pleading eyes looks at the camera. The child’s gloomy world is captured through a black and white photo that was transferred on canvas. As though hoping to inject color into this somber world, the artist used acrylic paint to superimpose colorful geometric lines and shapes on the image. Then on the edges of the canvas are written words that say, “Ang pangarap ng ulan, maglaro sa putikan, bago kunin ng araw (The dream of the rain is to play in the mud before it is taken by the sun).”

Photojournalist Pinggot Zulueta’s work features poetry by National Artist Virgilio Almario.

This is a piece by photojournalist Pinggot Zulueta done in collaboration with National Artist for Literature Virgilio Almario for the exhibit Makatulog Ka Pa Kaya? at the Crucible Gallery. Curated by Renato Habulan, the exhibit employs photos from a demolition in Taguig, Metro Manila.

In a phone interview with BusinessWorld on Nov. 12, Mr. Zulueta recalled what it was like when he took the photos in 2008. It happened just two days after he arrived from living in Australia, and he was shocked by the poverty that he witnessed. “Galing ka sa magandang bansa tapos ’yun ’yung unang bumulaga sa akin (I came from a beautiful country then that’s the first thing that I saw),” he said.

From these photos, he submitted one entitled Taguig demolition Philippines to the Institute of Housing and Urban Development Studies photo competition in Rotterdam, Netherlands and won a special award. This photo is now included in the exhibit as a reworked piece entitled Diyos Na Ang Bahala.

On the choice to include Mr. Almario’s poetry in his work, Mr. Zulueta said, “Ayoko kasi na tignan yung mga litrato ng isang saglit lang (I don’t want people to look at the photographs in just one moment),” explaining that he wants the viewer to spend time looking at the photo and to think about it.

Mr. Zulueta had previously worked with Mr. Almario -- the National Artist was his editor back when he was making editorial cartoons in the 1980s and ’90s. “Sanay na siya sa mga tema ko kaya madali niyang natutulaan (He was already used to the themes that I do so it was easy to make the poetry),” he said.

The geometric lines and shapes on the photos are an expression of Mr. Zulueta’s sympathy for his subjects’ plight. “Pilit kong binubura ang kanilang kahirapan at pinapalitan ng isang imaginary at makulay na buhay (I am trying to erase their poverty and replace it with an imaginary colorful world),” he said.

The exhibit will run until Nov. 17. with cocktail reception on Nov. 13 at 6p.m. The Crucible Gallery is located at the 4th Level, SM Megamall, EDSA corner Julia Vargas Ave., Mandaluyong City.