THE YELLOW crowd trooped to the Quirino Grandstand last June 30 to witness the inauguration of President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III. But somewhere in Makati, an art show was painting the town in triumphant yellow.
Yellow Paintings, a tribute exhibit to the late former President Corazon Aquino and a celebration of her son’s electoral victory, had opened at the Tower Club in collaboration with Galleria Nicolas last June 25 and ran until July 8.
Curated by art historian and UST Architecture graduate Reuben Ramos Cañete, the exhibit of paintings and sculptures was originaly shown during the People Power Revolution anniversary last February.
Since yellow is the signature color of the Aquino family, the collection of artworks were selected for accentuating the color. It featured works by UST graduates Ramon Orlina, Mario Parial, Edwin Tres Reyes, Dominic Rubio and Lydia Velasco and National Artist Arturo Luz.
Luz’s paintings, “Imaginary Landscape” and “Patina White Temples,” both acrylic on canvas, contain an extensive use of patterns and lines and a background made up of only two colors––black and yellow.
Orlina showcased three molded bronze with honey-colored patina. His abstract “Fountainhead” has smooth curves starting from a small base and expanding upward. On the other hand, “Dancing Partners” has sharp angles to depict the abstract image of a couple locked in an embrace.
“Ningning III-08” presents half of a young woman’s chest, emphasizing its delicate looking breast.
Parial’s acrylic-on-paper “Yellow Lady With Pink Carp” is a naïf depiction of a naked woman lying on the grass beside a fish.
Reyes played with chiaroscuro in his oil-on-canvas painting, “Right Time,” which shows a smiling man with clock hands between his lip and nose. The man is seen looking up on a number “12,” colored like the Philippine flag, written on his forehead. Though everything on the painting is brightly colored, the subject’s face is painted in black, grey and white.
With six paintings, Rubio had the most number of works in the exhibit, all reset in Hispanic Philippines and figures clothed in traditional Filipino costumes. Set against the Hispanic colonial background, their necks and limbs exaggeratedly thin and slender as compared to their blown-up faces and bodies, the figures represent ritual and ceremony during the colonial past.
His “Happy Family III,” a portrait of the Aquino family, is the artist’s view of how the family may have looked when Ninoy was still alive. The smiling faces that reflected their concern and love for each other show how close-knit the family was.
“Yellow Fiesta,” Velasco shows her trademark women-figures in richly exotic Filipiniana and presents three women in ethnic attire. Her painting is expressionistic, proven by the women having green colored skin while their cheeks, nose and lips were red. M. J. A. D. Cruz
