The country's painted story

MANILA, Philippines - I’ve always written on Philippine subjects, and I’ve always loved the Philippines. This time, I’m doing the visuals,” says cultural icon Gilda Cordero Fernando, fondly known as GCF. Her third solo exhibit, titled “Philippines, Oh My! Philippines,” the punny title a giveaway of the playful delights to come, in SLab art gallery in Makati showcases different aspects of life in the Philippines, all of them infused with a sense of wonder and whimsy, as only GCF can bring. This is GCF’s fist exhibit with SLab, which is also celebrating its first anniversary.

The 30-plus watercolor paintings are divided into four categories — national issues, Filipino creation myths, life in the Philippines and cats. The paintings are colorful and cheeky, a visual commentary on the evolution of Philippine life, complete with mutyas and manananggals, matons and matronas.

“Biyaheng Pinoy” laments the fate of the Philippines’ national vehicle. The painting features a family riding a colorful jeepney laden with a mishmash of objects — a bicycle, a table, some plants. The jeep dates from before an ordinance in the 1990s required jeepneys to be color-coordinated according to district, erasing in one stroke the colorful vehicles that once careened through Philippine streets. As GCF writes in the accompanying caption, “Fortunately the unsinkable jeepney recovered though never to the same degree of clan.”

Some paintings are easy to figure out. “High Life and Low Life,” is about the inequality of society, how the gaze always turns towards the rich and the beautiful. Others, such as “Miss Philippines Between Two Colonizers,” which presents a seemingly straightforward picture of a woman between two men, require some introspection. For those who really must cheat, a look at its wittily-written caption reveals all, while still leaving room for the imagination to wander.

Accompanying each painting is a caption that is stuck to the wall beside it. These explanations are as fun to read as the art is to look at. “I use my writing,” GCF says with a smile, “When they’re undecided (about a painting), they read the captions (and they say), ‘Ay, bibilhin ko na!’ (I’ll buy it!) Someone even asked if he could buy the caption. I said, ‘Sa ’yo na’ (It’s yours).”

Painting is just one of the many outlets that GCF has used for her creativity. Known for forever changing the landscape of whatever mantle she takes up, GCF is a storyteller, a columnist, a publishing powerhouse, fashion designer and playwright, among other things. She took up painting when she was 70, her works never ceasing to display her vision of wit and wonder. The works are peppered with GCF’s amusing yet sharp commentary on various things from national identity to the Pacquiaos moving to Dasmariñas.

GCF’s favorites include “Urban Poor” and “Urban Rich,” two paintings that work best when juxtaposed with each other. One shows a bunch of clean, well-dressed, heavily made-up, their noses turned up, all looking smug and bored at the same time while the other has different types of people all in a line, the sick parent, the woman whose womb is one of the causes of overpopulation, the manananggal that visits the squatters area once in a blue moon (preferably when elections are around the corner). “I like ‘Urban Poor’ and ‘Urban Rich.’ Why? Because they’re unconventional. If a painting is unconventional, I’ll like it,” GCF says.

What is unconventional are her portraits of street cats. Done in different colors, she captures felines in different tones and moods. Her artist statement explains why she chose to concentrate on the mangy pusakal and as usual, she hits a button that is all too Pinoy: “I think cats or pusakal (pusang kalye) are an indispensable feature of the Philippine scene.”

“Philippines Oh My! Philippines” is intelligent commentary encased in explosions of color and predilections for joy. GCF admits to having fun with the project, and encourages everyone to enjoy it as well, not as paintings, but as a dynamic give and take of ideas that reflect what it is to be Pinoy in a world that is getting smaller and smaller each day. “People seem to want to take painting seriously,” she says. “I’m not like that.”

Equally fanciful but more ornate is Lilianna Manahan’s “Omelette,” which is on view at Slab’s 20Square. Using ostrich eggs as a canvas, Lilianna uses watercolor, latex and epoxy to bring forth scenes from classical mythology, modern philosophy and personal dreams. There is a fragility to the pieces, both because of the canvas and also because of the subject matter. Each egg contains its own world, one that flitters between reality and imagination, and like the states it mimics, also easily crushed.

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“Philippines, Oh My! Philippines” is shown alongside Omelette by Lilianna Manahan at SLab’s 20Square. The exhibit runs until November 21, 2009.

For inquiries, call Silverlens Gallery at 816-0044, SMS 0917-5874011, e-mail manage@silverlensphoto.com, or visit Silverlens at the second floor, YMC Bldg. II, 2320 Pasong Tamo Ext., Makati City, or www.silverlensphoto.com and slab.silverlensphoto.com. Gallery hours are Monday to Friday 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturdays 1 to 6 p.m.