Geraldine Javier, "Red Fights Back", detail

As always, you get a satisfying variety at Silverlens.  This time, their three simultaneous exhibits take us to Red Riding Hood’s lair, bring us some corners of the sky, and show some skinskin.

Geraldine Javier, Red Fights Back

Geraldine Javier takes over the gallery’s smallest exhibit area, the 20 sqm. corner that used to be called 20Square.  For Red Fights Back, she recreates the spot in the woods where The Big Bad Wolf meets and devours Little Red Riding Hood.  Viewers are meant to interact with her installation by donning a sweeping crocheted red cloak, picking up a woven basket, and walking about the thick carpet of dried leaves.  Geraldine, however, equips her protagonists with a slingshot, a snake spear, and a makeshift wooden sword, guaranteed to give pause to any hungry wolves.

Many of those who made it to opening night gamely put on the costume and posed for the photographer intent on documenting the experience.  The fun aspect notwithstanding, the piece underscores the shift in Geraldine’s art.  Painting seems to have taken a back seat.  Of late, instead of two-dimensional scenes, she has increasingly turned to working on three-dimensional tableaux that incorporate a variety of material.  In this case: crochet, tatted lace, leaves boiled till their membranes turn visible, or pounded by the hundreds on lengths of cheesecloth until the fabric has been filled with their impressions.

I am reprinting portions of an interview with Geraldine by Malaysian curator Adeline Ooi, originally published in the Silverlens newsletter. It provides a great backgrounder on this piece, and on the artist’s current frame of mind:

Adeline Ooi (A0): Lets talk about layers. It is clear that painting is central to your practice. But in recent years, I believe since 2008, your work has gradually moved away from just painting (on canvas) and are becoming more 3-d, more tactile through the physical layers you have applied/attached on your canvases in the form of strands of tatting/crochet, framed insects, etc. Can you tell us a bit more about what you are trying to achieve? Is it right to conclude that paint is no longer enough (to help you convey your narrative)?

Geraldine Javier (GJ): I’m not really moving away from painting. I don’t think I’ll leave it, as I still very much enjoy not only the product but more so the process or the act of painting itself. I also enjoy making craft-based works not just for the sake of making objects but because it offers a different experience, another way of giving form to ideas.

I guess what I’m doing is trying to create a union, a sort of “polygamous marriage” amongst the things and materials that interest me. As in all marriages, especially polygamous ones (laughter), sometimes it’s smooth – successful presentation of painting and object/installation as one work, while at other times they seem disconnected and require more work from the audience, as they have to imagine harder. At the heart of all these works is my fascination with stories and storytelling.

At times, I find painting alone is not sufficient to tell these stories. I have limitations as a painter so I try to make up for it in the objects and installations to create a visual experience. I want my audience and I to engage with a wider range of experience(s) – tactile, visceral – even the smell (of rotting leaves) will be part of the experience in this show!

AO: How do you negotiate the different processes in painting and making craft-based objects? Are they diametric opposites in the sense that craft-based work are considered “recreation”, and painting is the “real” (serious) work? Can you tell us how the two processes differ?

GJ: I consider both painting and making craft-based objects as serious work. Well, they are both fun in the beginning and then they get tedious but they become super fun again in the final phase especially when everything comes together nicely. In painting the outcome is predetermined, not that many surprises as I already know what I want to see, how I want to paint a particular image – I sometimes make adjustments but they are very minimal. Craft-based works on the other hand are very organic. It doesn’t always work out as planned and I often have to improvise. I wouldn’t say that craft-based works are “recreation”, rather, it presents a discipline different from painting. I think they are complementary. I mentioned that I find painting no longer enough (to tell the story). I find that nowadays when I’m thinking of a concept for a piece or show, sometimes it is the objects that I want to make that will determine what I will paint, and at other times it is the other way around. The challenge for me is how to make them come together as a coherent body of work; it is a rewarding process as this tends to germinate ideas for future work.

Geraldine Javier as Red Riding Hood ready for the wolf

The makings of a forest: leaves pounded on cloth until they leave an imprint

Skeletonized leaves

Branches clothed in crochet

Experiencing the woods

Pancho Francisco gives Red a go

Red's basket with a slingshot

Geraldine Javier and her team (of "angels")

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Chati Coronel, SkinSkin

You notice Chati Coronel’s colors first, the bright hues she uses as background against which she sets her women, or for the patterns and drips imprinted on their skin.  You don’t see their faces, just their forms— stylishly posed nudes that reek of sophistication and chic.

Chati paints pieces that are easy to appreciate, works of effortless appeal.

Chati Coronel. "All I Know Is Now",

Chati Coronel, "Powder Blue Rainbow"

Chati Coronel, "Skin-Space-Skin"

Installation view

Chati Coronel, "Vanilla"

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Jay Yao, Skyscapes

I don’t think Jay Yao, also known as Jose Y. Campos III, ever sleeps on the plane. How else does he manage to capture clouds— in all their majesty, at different times of the day— for his photographs?

The 31-year-old photographer currently lives in New York, but plans to move to Manila sometime in the next year.  His exhibit notes provide us with an insight on the impetus for his show:

“There is something magical being in the clouds.

Each time is like seeing it for the first time because these clouds are so fleeting.

These ephemeral forms line the sky and are never repeated.

There is a sense of eternity that comes with a vast, uninterrupted field of vision that I want to convey.”

Jay Yao and Gabby Barredo with "YVR to JFK (Sunrise)"

Two of Jay Yao's skyscapes

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Jay Yao, "LAX to MNL"

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Red Fights Back, SkinSkin, and Skyscapes run from 28 June to 21 July 2012 at Silverlens, 2F YMC Bldg, 2320 Pasong Tamo Extension (Don Chino Roces Ave. Extension), Makati City.  Phone (632) 816-0044 or visit www.silverlensgalleries.com