VISUAL artists Herbert Pajarito and Sam Penaso showcased their latest works in respective, recently concluded solo exhibitions with Art Lounge Manila-The Podium, Ortigas Center (@artloungemanila). The shows ran from October 23 to 31.
Pajarito revisited the concept of divine creation, visualized in his signature degree of intricacy. It’s a sophisticated abstract expression of active lines and busy colors that won him several recognitions, including top prizes at the 2013 Metrobank Art and Design Excellence and the 66th Art Association of the Philippines Annual Awards.
In Garden in the Sky, Pajarito’s latest solo exhibition curated by Ricky Francisco, which also served as the artist’s seventh with Art Lounge Manila, the Oriental Mindoro-born artist took inspiration from a lucid dream. In it, he visited a paradise of peace and flowers.
From this fortuitous excursion, Pajarito was caught in awe yet again of the Creator. Thus, as he did in his fourth and sixth solo exhibitions, the artist honored the divine. Inspired patterns of flowers and constellations filled the frames in his new show, along with spontaneous expressions of line drawings that imply wonder of and submission to the Almighty.
In Ihasik ang Binhi ng Liwanag at Pag-asa, Pajarito creates a complex universe of green leaves and pink flowers floating like celestial bodies, together with lines that break and swirl in different hues. Family Bond strikes with the same overwhelming sense of magnificence, sans a central body but with much more free-flowing action between curves and rainbows.
Meanwhile, Guardian Angels brings to mind hieroglyphic symbols that demand to be deciphered. An outline of a man on the left panel draws initial attention, but there are rich details that await discovery elsewhere. Around the area of the subject’s right foot, for instance, are smaller human outlines, but with wings spread out at different angles.
Opposite Pajarito’s one-man exhibition was that of Sam Penaso. Titled Splice, the show was curated by Jay Bautista.
Penaso is a multi-disciplinary artist who has presented his works here and abroad, winning several awards to boot. Driven by the unsatiable pursuit of new means of creative expression, he is known for pushing his boundaries. The disposition led him to dabble in sculpture and performance, as well as experimenting with different mediums for his paintings, including stainless steel.
In his latest exhibition, Penaso revisited the concept and produced new pieces of acrylic on the ubiquitous alloy, which we see anywhere from jeepneys to kitchen wares. Splice offers us the artist’s latest set of wall-bound pieces and sculptures, bearing random images impressed in more than 5,000 silkscreen platforms. The figures include aquatic animals, the human body, a grenade, and much more.
Humanscape presents a physiological mosaic, while Seascape brings us manifold water creatures. In, Infinityscape 98, Penaso utilizes steel not as the canvas but as the subject itself, dictating it to dance in soft lines going around and through a ball in the middle and half of it at the base.
More information about Pajarito’s Garden in the Sky and Penaso’s Splice is available at www.artloungemanila.com.