Lyra Garcellano’s Epistolary

Lyra Garcellano, "Aria"

After disappearing for a year, spending six months of 2010 in an Asian Cultural Council grant in New York, Lyra Garcellano has come back with wonderful new work. In Epistolary, her solo exhibit at Finale Art File, Lyra has treated us to five paintings she describes as imprints. Faint figures whisper from her canvases, barely discernible through her loose pastel strokes. All of women, their floral frocks blur into the background, creating sheer, almost abstract, patterns. Her paintings have always stood out for their delicacy and softness, and evoke a sense of romantic melancholia. This set keeps to that sensibility, progressing naturally from her previous pieces. To me, they seem to project a more confident Lyra.

Lyra Garcellano, "Etcetera"

The show runs as one of three, all by women artists. At Finale’s Tall Gallery, Keiye Miranda Tuazon has turned portraits into giant lockets for her show Strangely Familiar. Marija Vicente, meanwhile, has taken over the gallery’s Video Room.

Lyra Garcellano, "Pentimento"

Epistolary by Lyra Garcellano, Strangely Familiar by Keiye Miranda Tuazon, and something something by Marija Vicente run from 2 to 27 September 2011 at Finale Art File, Warehouse 17, La Fuerza Compound, 2241 Pasong Tamo, Makati City. Phone (632) 813-2310 or visit http://www.finaleartfile.com