THOMASIAN painter Jane Arrieta-Ebarle deviates from her usual ethnic art form and focuses on the interplay of lines and colors in her third solo exhibit, Hibla Series 1, staged at the SM Megamall Renaissance Gallery from January 9 to 30.
An upshot of her previous Pinagmulan collection mounted at the UST Museum of Arts and Sciences last July, Hibla marked the artist’s transition in theme, from archaic ethnic patterns to colorful abstractions as seen in the nine artworks that comprised the exhibit.
“I never did Hibla on purpose,” Ebarle confessed, explaining that the art style formed by itself. “It was as if an unseen hand guided me all throughout. The experience of creating was ethereal as it was unfathomable.”
Nonetheless, Ebarle retained her trademark use of haphazardly lines painted across the canvas, and superimposed on the abstract background. The effect of these create semblances of fibers in microscopic view, hence the title Hibla.
The theme of the painting is best seen in “Hibla 5,” where dark lines of red, blue, and black are woven altogether, creating a fascinating impression of threads as if viewed from the inside of a fabric.
“These lines were accidental, floating around untamed and suppressed, suddenly revealing an out-of-the-blue profundity in the artwork,” Ebarle said. Aside from resembling the intricacies of fibers, the lines are also meant to look as if they are reverberating with the complexities of the human mind, she added.
The paintings are paired according to the color themes, despite their difference in terms of line strokes. “Hibla I and II” share a dark green background made up of intersecting dark green lines with lighter green lines placed on top to create a beautiful randomness.
But this style does not require a deep sense of appreciation for these fiber-like figures, rather, it pulls the viewers away from thinking too logically.
“I have not attached any meaning to these paintings as everything was purely abstract,” Ebarle said. “Instead, I am trying to deconstruct the mind from being structural, since it would be nice if we would allow our minds to be still and think in abstract once in a while.”
