The Ateneo Art Awards Shortlist for 2012
A three-channel video installation documenting seafarers from a small Visayan island, two multi-piece sculptural installations, and a video celebrating the quirkiness of the jeepney: this year’s Ateneo Art Awards went to works firmly rooted on local sensibilities, translated by three talented artists with global perspectives. Continue reading
Noi Gonzales, "Pakikisama", at Pinto Art Gallery
I’ve been stranded in the seven kingdoms of Westeros these past few weeks, ensnared by the five mammoth volumes of The Game of Thrones. I thought it high time to come back to reality, to catch up on Manila’s art scene—my original form of escape. I wanted to see some exhibits that were due to close, and to make sure I made it to some of this weekend’s more promising openings.
My two-day art binge took me from the heart of Taguig’s Global City, to the streets of Makati and yonder, all the way up to the hills of Antipolo. Continue reading
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. Continue reading
Riel Hilario, "From The Wreckage, A Silent Reverie", detail
RIEL HILARIO, ASTRAL PROJECTIONS
Karl Jung defines projections as issues that our consciousness cannot face, concerns we may end up expressing via our dreams. Riel Hilario has mined this explanation, along with a youthful obsession for astronomy, to create two sets of works for Astral Projections, currently on view at The Drawing Room. The exhibit features his most recent series of sculpture, pieces that draw on his background as a wood carver from an Ilocano family of santo makers. This heritage continues to frame Continue reading
Riel Hilario, "Gazing into the horizon while it gazes back at you", carved and polychromed friutwood, 70x24x20 cm
When sculptor Riel Hilario sits before a chunk of wood, he has no preconceived forms in his head. Like a shaman, he lets the wood guide him, allowing it to tell him what to do. On occasion, he even lets his dreams dictate the directions of his hands. What he consciously aspires for is the creation of contemporary sculpture using the woodcarving traditions he grew up with. In this exhibit of new works at The Drawing Room, Riel taps into his Ilocano heritage to once again bring us his rebultos, art that is in the round, derived “from the block”. Continue reading
Just like everybody else in the audience, I eagerly awaited the announcement of winners for this year’s Ateneo Art Awards. The
Shattering States: The Ateneo Art Awards 2010 Winners: Pow Martinez, Leslie de Chavez, and Mark Salvatus
Ateneo Art Gallery staff kept the final results under tight guard, even to us jurors. Thankfully, they paced this year’s awards night programme so that none of us had long to wait. Continue reading
Riel Hilario, "A Piece of Bread: St. Roch"
Riel Hilario does his best work when he goes back to his roots. Trained by santo carvers in his native Ilocos, he revisits this skill in his latest show, Aniwaas, at Art
View of exhibit installation
Informal in Greenhills. The Ilocano believes that a person possesses four souls. Aniwaas is that which stays earthbound, not as a ghost but as an imprint that lingers on. The Aniwaas may take the form of animals, tiny creatures like birds and butterflies.
Riel Hilario, "Even Monkeys Fall From Trees"
In this show, Riel exhibits small birds with human faces. These images have recurred in his dreams, that of Santo Niños transformed into birds that retain the Holy Infant’s facial features. Another device that occurs repeatedly in his work, that of disembodied hands, harks to an invisible object, an unseen other that interacts with the piece but remains beyond our visual plane. He uses this in The Wanderer. We also see this in The Reverie of Reason Produces…,his
Riel Hilario, "At Sea, One Weekend Journey"
attempt at Velasquez’s Santa Maria Infanta. He injects a dose of humor in The Fire Girl and Better To Burn Out Than Fade Away, his depictions of children with their heads on fire, inspired by witnessing his daughter throwing a tantrum.
The most beautiful pieces, the ones that make us appreciate Riel’s skill the most, are the larger ones: No Longer to Dream But to Be Dreamt Of, Even Monkeys Fall Out of Trees, Flock Birds of the Same: Whispering St. Francis, and the invitation piece, Birds In My Ear, Spectre in My Shoulder. At Sea,
Detail, "At Sea, One Weekend Journey"
One Weekend Journey serves as a receptacle for corals and other found objects from the serene Ilocano seaside at Sitio Remedios.
Riel Hilario, "The Fire Girl" and "Better To Burn Out Than To Fade Away"
I first encountered Riel’s pieces at Pinto Gallery in Antipolo, shortly after Kakaduwa, his 2005 solo show at Boston Gallery. Kakaduwa refers to another of our souls, the doppelganger that the Ilocanos believe travels in our sleep. Even then, I could sense his affinity to wood, his instinct for chiseling and bringing this medium to life via pieces that meld his background as a santo carver and contemporary sculptor. I am so glad he’s back, coaxing wood into art.
Riel has left a personal memento inside each one of these pieces. This ritual allows the sculptor to give a part of himself to his work. Thus, true to the show’s title, we can look at these wooden forms as Riel’s own Aniwaas.
Riel Hilario, "No Longer To Dream But To Be Dreamt Of"
Aniwaas by Riel Hilario runs from 3 to 20 September 2009 at Art Informal, 277 Connecticut St., Greenhills East, San Juan. Phone (632)725-8518 or visit http:// www.artinformal.com
Riel Hilario, "Birds In My Ear, Spectre In My Shoulder"
Another view of installation