In Functional Art: Thomasian Settings at the Miguel de Benavides Library on Jan. 27 to Feb. 7, students and faculty of the College of Fine Arts and Design (CFAD) marked the annual University Week and the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas (Jan. 28) with a multi-disciplinary exhibit showcasing paintings, photographs, sculptures, consumer products, and merchandise depicting and celebrating the institution.
The oil-on-canvas “One True Hope,” by Amihan de Sosa, shows a hand holding a candle surrounded by the logo of the University in white cardboard. In the background are irregular circular blobs of yellow, orange, and white. Meanwhile, Rommel Pacio’s painting, “Student’s Power,” commemorates the largest human cross formed by the UST community during the Quadricentennial celebration that made it to the Guinness Book of World Records.
Nina Quijano’s “Determined, Driven, Destined” illustrates a tiger in a three-dimensional effect roaring with its mouth open and teeth bared while the phrases “I bleed” and “Black Gold Black White” are scattered at the bottom of the canvas.
Industrial Design majors made uniquely designed packages for UST T-shirts, I.D. laces, tumblers, Growling Tiger stuffed toys, and UST pins.
Carved wall clocks with the University’s symbol, candleholders in the form of the Benavides monument, and souvenir items made of resin were also featured.
Cece-Gigi Bitantes, the project director, said the exhibit sought to showcase artworks in a setting more accessible to the UST community, and to suggest how the University could be represented in functional art pieces and designs.
“The exhibit celebrates what consciously or unconsciously resonates within us as Thomasians, and showcases how this can be translated into functional art pieces and designs,” Bitantes said. Aliliana Margarette T. Uyao
