A PAINTING is an artwork everyone loves. No wonder it’s a staple decoration, whether at home, office or any place. This ornament either commonly hangs on a wall or serves as a centerpiece to easily get noticed.
Because it comes in a visual form, it’s so comprehensible. The message or emotions an artist wants to impart to his or her audience are so relatable. Hence, it’s a masterpiece worth to own. This is what any artists like Annette Chambers, who hails from Australia, wants to achieve.
“Every day in my life I just love blending colors. I love bringing my emotions to my paintings,” enthused the painter, who recently flew from Down Under to the Philippines for her first solo art exhibit overseas.
With conviction from Michael A. McDermott, a longtime family friend who now represents and manages her expositions, she said that it’s a no-brainer to hold a display of her collection of 35 modern abstract paintings since the majority of the country’s population is appreciative of such—a cup of tea she mastered in recent years.
“I wanted to show the Filipino people artistry from Australia. The colors of my imagination are what I’m bringing from a different country and culture. So I thought that would be nice to show,” she said of her offerings.
Collectively, the exhibit vividly shows the inspiration she took from the serene surroundings of Parkdale, a suburb of Melbourne where she and her family resides. Thanks to the strategic beachfront location of her house, she enjoys the full vista of all the wonderful things around her—from the azure ocean, with its crystal clear waters, calm waves and colorful coral reefs; to the expansive valleys teeming with blooming lovely flowers—from dusk ‘till dawn, all throughout the four seasons.
Using sweeping brush strokes and pallet knives, each piece reflects her successful technique of blending the colors, form and/or line of its subject exactly the way how she fancied and felt while painting it in acrylics. The beauty and freedom of abstraction she had in translating this to the canvas perfectly expressed what she has had inside her heart.
“The emotions for every painting that I do comes from a life experience, which it always has,” she shared. “Whatever you feel, like the way you flow it or the way you put it on the canvass, that’s your artistry. That’s your interpretation of what you want to do.”
Among the showcased paintings, Lilies in the Field is one of her favorites. It’s colorful hues evoke her good spirits. Chambers said: “The brighter ones are always [reflective of me being in a] happy place. I wanted people to feel happy when they look at them. So their first instinct is to smile.”
Electric Blue, likewise, is closest to her heart. It’s a product of hope at difficult times, according to her. She noted that this and other darker paintings up for grabs in the exhibit show the very moment when she “was not in a good place, so it’s my way of coping with stresses.”
The artist, specifically, dedicates this artwork to her husband, who tragically lost his eye sight and has since been designated officially blind. She recalled that two months ago he asked her to do such painting with those specific colors he imagined.
“That one was very, very emotional for me until this day because my husband lost color in his life,” she said of Andy, whom she was married with three children. “So it’s special.”
Inspired by the braveness of her spouse despite his condition, Chambers and McDermott have decided to mount her pioneering art show here for a good cause. One of the featured paintings named Beach Surfing was donated to James Mackay Foundation (JMF) for auction.
“It has a school [for the] blind children and that means, of course, a lot to me. So that’s why I picked them as the charity that we wanted to support,” she said, adding that a part of the sales proceeds of other pieces will be given to JMF.
The Aussie artist encouraged the public, particularly art aficionados, to visit her art exhibit to get a piece of her opus not only for display at their residences, offices, or businesses, but also to “paint the colors of hope” for the vision-impaired Filipino youths
“With my artistry, if it grabs your attention and when you think you can live with it for the rest of your life because you’re looking at it every day in your home, that’s what I want you to do. That’s the kind of inspiration I want,” she stressed.
Mafae Management Consultancy in association with JMF and Road Packer currently host an Art Exhibit by Annette Chambers. It runs until October 12 at the Fourth Floor Atrium of The City Club Alphaland Makati Place.