Yasmin Sison Explores What’s Underneath The Sky Plus Alternative Collages and Nikki Luna’s Menagerie of Lilies

Yasmin Sison, "Haraya (Underneath The Sky)"

Yasmin Sison revisits familiar elements in this solo exhibit, her first in Manila since her 2009 show, Into The Woods, at SM Art Center. She returns to her portrayals of children. This set brings them indoors, away from the forest and the shore that have served as settings for her more recent depictions of kids at play. These hark back to 2007’s Gingerbread Girls, with the kids seated against a plain backdrop, looking squarely at the viewer.

Yasmin calls this show Underneath the Sky to echo the expansive, infinite potentials that childhood and interacting with children bring. She elaborates, “Dealing with (children) and being with (children) is like being under a great big sky, where the possibilities are endless. As a mother raising and being with children, there is a continual push at my boundaries, out of my known circle into the great beyond.”

Four of the five paintings depict girls, all of whom have a personal relationship with the artist. Each piece is a diptych, and Yasmin pairs each of her subjects with paintings of microorganism: spores and seeds and bacteria. Like children, these tiny living things cannot be contained, although she makes an attempt to do so—both with the children and with the microbes. A variety of crocheted, multicolored versions of the organisms have been put inside clear glass jars, while the portraits show the girls in their Sunday best. But glass lids offer no guarantees that the organisms will not spread, nor do the clothes offer proof of good behavior. In these paintings, the girls display sass and attitude, menace even, defiantly challenging viewers. They hold on to animal masks, a reference to Yasmin’s past work where she had children put on these masks for her paintings.

The show also includes one more portrait, that of Haraya, Yasmin’s son. Unlike the girls, he has his pet in his lap. She has painted him as if he has just come in from play. Still he looks impatient, cross.

A group of framed etchings with more of the microorganisms round out the show at Finale’s Upper Gallery. On the main exhibit space, Mariano Ching, Yasmin’s husband, and Isabel Ching, (nope, not related!) curate Collage Drop Outs, a show that explores alternative methods of producing collages. I thought the most interesting ones were Juan Alcazaren’s nightlights made from plastic patterns patched together and Mac Valdezco’s painted free forms. I’m not sure how Mac’s piece qualifies as a collage, but her workmanship is superb. She takes pointillism to extremely fine heights. More please!

In Finale’s Video Room, Nikki Luna shows her Menagerie of Bursting Lilies, a video and sound installation voiced by Angel Aquino and Andi Eigenmann. Nikki again tackles the tragic after effects of a relationship gone wrong, the bitterness and sense of entrapment it wreaks on a woman left to deal with the consequences.

Underneath The Sky, Collage Drop Outs, and Menagerie of Bursting Lilies run from 2 to 31 December 2011 at Finale Art Gallery, Warehouse 17, La Fuerza Compound, 2241 Pasong Tamo Extension, Makati City. Phone (632) 813-2310 or visit http://www.finaleartfile.com