Days of wine & horses at Greenbelt Park

Ann Tiukinhoy Pamintuan did not have to look far for inspiration when she was chosen as the featured artist for Greenbelt’s ArtPark, an initiative featuring Filipino artists whose works are displayed in Greenbelt Park. The perfect place these days for people — and horse — watching over a glass of wine on a cool afternoon. 

Ann belongs to a family of 13 siblings, and so for ArtPark she created 13 sculptures of horses made from metal — wire, stainless steel, galvanized iron, brass, copper and flat metal.

The horses are of different sizes, colors, and in different degrees of movement. One horse is in the process of kneeling, as if competing in dressage, another has its front legs up in the air and it is easy to imagine the accompanying neigh, and many are galloping. Each horse has its own distinctive character and unique look — and to think they don’t even have eyes.  

The moment you see the sculptures you would know, without a doubt, that they are Ann Pamintuan’s works. This lady has, in the past 14 years, been manipulating metal to create furniture pieces, home and fashion accessories — reaping awards along the way for her designs, from Manila to Stockholm, Paris, London, New York, and Japan.

She weaves and coils wires, she flattens metals and makes them do her bidding no matter how difficult this concept may seem in the beginning. But the end products — her award-winning Cocoon furniture pieces, her Infinity wall plate and her animal sculptures — bear her signature style: a kind of design and scale so perfect that they make you do a double take. This…is wire? Seriously?

The same reaction goes for her horses. You see them scattered on the green lawns of Greenbelt from afar, looking like they were made of anything but wire, but you move closer and you can see they are not one solid piece of sculpture — they are metal wires that make up the muscular bodies of the horses, and even thinner threads are those that make up the manes and tails of the horses.

One standout horse has a stainless steel mane and tail going in all directions — a wild, smallish horse, giving out an impish vibe; another is galloping, the muscles on its rounded buttocks and front legs clearly defined, its tail in a straight line, up in the air; and another seem to be just observing its siblings.

Ann says, “People ask me if metal or wire is hard to work with. The truth is, I am very comfortable with it and for ArtPark we used several kinds. One of my workers was very excited and inspired to use brass. The most expensive among the metals is stainless steel, which I used for the mane and tail. For some horses, we used copper. We did our own finishing to make sure they won’t rust. I was doing the finishing myself for one horse.”

This one horse that she lovingly finished, she says, represents her best. It may have been repositioned since we saw it during the installation (in front of Kai restaurant in Greenbelt 5), but look for a horse that looks “quietly just positioned in a corner, a bit shy.” That would be her.

She didn’t give her siblings’ names to the other horses, but rather made a sort of game out of it. She named the horses as she saw her siblings in her mind — combining letters in their names and their characteristics. So even her siblings may not know which of the horses they are.

Ayala Land vice president Rowena Tomeldan explains that ArtPark regularly features renowned Filipino artists — past exhibitors include National Artist Arturo Luz, Impy Pilapil and Ramon Orlina — to bring their works closer to the people.

“Aside from being home of luxury and global brands, we want to make Greenbelt the home of Filipino artists,” Tomeldan says. “We have worked with Ann before and love her pieces. In fact, she made a sculpture for our Abreeza Mall in Davao and is doing pieces for Ayala’s Seda Hotels. She is a world-class artist and she deserves to be in our ArtPark. We’ve always said we are not just bringing the best of the world to the Philippines, but also the best of the Philippines to the world. We want to show our tourists and expats who go to Greenbelt our local talents. Also, it’s the vision of the company to bring art closer and make it accessible to our people.”  

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Ann Pamintuan’s “Siblings” horses are at Greenbelt Park in Makati. They will be exhibited for six months. For inquiries, e-mail her company, The Gilded Expressions, at info@thegildedexpressions.com.