Riel Hilario’s Special Exhibit at Art Informal: Perro Amoroso, it was a paradisical state: the body was allowed to be a body

Riel Hilario, "Perro Amoroso", detail

More often than not, a privately commissioned work goes straight from artist to collector, and largely disappears from public view. Art Informal’s Tina Fernandez feels, however, that certain pieces deserve a wider audience, even for a brief period, before they go off into homes or to storage facilities, available only to a select few.

When Tina facilitated recent pieces with Riel Hilario for two personal collections, artist, gallerist, and collectors all agreed that Manila’s art lovers would enjoy seeing the work Riel completed. For this week, as the gallery prepares for its next show, Riel’s two sculptural installations are on display.

Perro Amoroso is the first of the two works, the one that welcomes you into the gallery. In Riel’s words:

“Perro Amoroso is an attempt to portray a pet dog, if she were given a human persona (and a face). In this case, my objective was to explore the relationship of projection that exists between pet and owner, and between canine with its territory, then bring these to a symbolic expression of a portrait. In my presentation, the dog Frida becomes a being, almost human in sentience, who is watchful yet relaxed, assured of her place and her significance in the household.”

Riel’s second piece stands spread out over Art Informal’s main exhibit area. Less straightforward, It’s a paradisical state: the body was allowed to be a body continues to explore the enchanted, fantastic side that marks most of Riel’s pieces. He sets the work in what could be a magical forest, a locale from a Victorian Romantic painting or a dwelling for the likes of Puck. He clarifies that paradisical states do not embody perfection. They encourage freedom from boundaries, and suspension from accepted conventions, that bring on a restorative frame of mind.

“The images of this installation work are derived from a compilation of dream sequences, many of which I have woken from in a state of complete stillness. Unlike many who try to decipher the meaning of dream symbology, my approach has always been to take the image as fact, as something that spontaneously emerges from nature, and I try to “render visual” what was originally mental in construction. In a sense I try to smuggle something out of this loci amoeni, from paradise into the tactile world. I try not to read the work, but rather regard it, and invite others to do so.”

Riel Hilario’s Perro Amoroso, it was a paradisical state, the body was allowed to be a body runs for a limited time, from 29 April to 4 May 2012 at Art Informal, 277 Connecticut St., Greenhills East, Mandaluyong City. Phone (632) 725-8518 or visit www.artinformal.com