Learning to Unlearn

CEBU, Philippines — In “The Book of Five Rings,” legendary Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi compiled a straightforward primer on kenjutsu and martial arts – a manual on the virtue of technique, its relationship with philosophy and the value in learning to learn.

Written in the mid-1600s, the volume is more than a guide on the nitojutsu (two-sword) fencing style, as it correlates practice’s affinity with mastery and the ideal learning mindset that binds the two as one.

This correlation, albeit not exactly the source, sits at the center of Dennis “Sio” Montera’s most recent solo exhibit in Cebu.

Titled “Un/Painting” and ongoing at Qube Gallery in The Crossroads, Banilad until August 12, the show presents Montera’s discoveries and rediscoveries in his predilection for abstract expressionist themes.

Treading on three basic principles that often define the art-making process – the rousing process, the contextual interpretation of the rousing process and the inspiration that can be drawn from the rousing process – the show essentially enjoins viewers to rediscover the fine points that made abstract expressionism one of the world’s groundbreaking modernist movements.

Often regarded as the counterpart of representational styles, abstract expressionist pieces are typically made by an artist without a predefined subject or theme – a style wherein an artist conceptualizes and forms a work while he is already working on it. In “Un/Painting,” viewers get to see nuanced tenses of this aspect to the style, with Montera challenging them to see what he sees – to decipher the messages he has hidden in his works.

Zeroing in on the process-oriented drives that serve as the nucleus of all expressionist motifs, Montera furthers the boundaries of his creative oeuvre in this show by foregoing with what his art has become – to find it anew; by learning to unlearn, so to speak.

In a way, the show serves as a social commentary on life and the lessons it brings – that in as much as experience is life’s greatest teacher, one can never really have enough of it to say that he’s learned all that can be.