CARAMOAN X 6 ] Just imagine an Andok's by the beachfront

Jun de Leon captures the early morning of Caramoan Island, inspired and reminiscent of a Juvenal Sanso. “Photographs capture a precise moment in a still image. How you take the subject the second you click on your shutter will not be the same the second after. There are numerous moments to be captured in such a breathtaking island.”

As long as they preserve its beauty, and not turn it into Boracay, we're all for promoting Caramoan as the next big destination. Jun de Leon, together with Camsur poster boy L-Ray Villafuerte, recently gathered five of the country's most prominent young photographers to capture their own visions of this prized island. The works will be on exhibit beginning this Thursday at Greenbelt 5. Left photo (from left): Jake Versoza, Paolo Pineda, Jo Ann Bitagcol, Jun de Leon, Sara Black and Mark Nicdao.


Jake Versoza uses blacks, grays, and whites in his docu-photo treatment. “I wanted to document the daily lives of the people there because they thrive off nature’s bounty both in land and sea.” How do you capture warmth on film? He answers,” I was there during a strong typhoon but found peace hanging out with the locals. That’s warmth.”

“As a photographer, whenever I go to a place, I always observe how the light there falls and how that affects the color of everything," says Sara Black. Caramoan has its own color palette and I enjoyed tremendously photographing that in its simplicity… the color in the little things. For me, it’s such a sincere joy to appreciate something as miraculous as color.”


“It’s the emotion and feeling of the place. It’s a rollercoaster ride. Caramoan has the balance of things you need when you’re on vacation mode. It has a bit of everything you want.” A natural portraitist, Mark Nicdao captures smiles, gleeful eyes, and innocence in his photographs.

Jo Ann Bitagcol, on the other hand, captures everyday scenes in the island. “Everywhere I go I make it a point to discover its beauty, life, and soul. And I saw all of this in Caramoan,” she says.

“We rode the chopper going to Caramoan from CamSur," says Paolo Pineda, and seeing it from that vantage point was just surreal. I wanted to capture the island like a classic painting… timeless.”

THE POLISHED SET ] Last chance to see Reg Yuson's show at Mos today

"Wow," the eminent stylist declared as we went inside the empty Mos Gallery last night. "Wow," he repeated. We just came from an art opening at a nearby restaurant and the works there may have been underwhelming for him. But Reg Yuson's works are quite a quiet spectacle.

Ronald Achacoso explains: "Reg Yuson features ten medium sized square panels lacquered with layers of high grade automotive paint that create highly reflective surfaces predominantly rendered in black offset by a few red pieces. These minimalist constructs are hybrid fusions of painting and sculpture, whereas the works themselves are wall bound two dimensional surfaces, it’s execution requires the rigorous process that sculpture entails."



Here's what we think. Choosing only to work on shapes, fiberglass and automative paint, the results are simple, exact, perfect. It says, also, 'This is it, whether you like it or not, I ain't touching it. I'm done.'

We hear ya. We love.

Mos is located at the 3rd Level of Bo Concept at Bonifacio High Street. And for more of Reg Yuson's works, it's those giant public sculptures outside at the High Street grounds.

KRIP YUSON ON TOKYO ] A Filipino poet's Tokyo

WHEN POETS GATHER, it is all very prim and proper, for starters. When poets get together in Tokyo, the p’s and q’s gain startling modes of, yes, irrelevance. It is a triumph of perspective, one Seoul-based American conferee exulted. Another American, Tokyo-based, quickly took exception.

“Tokyo may make a fine place for any gathering of poets,” he said, “but it isn’t a city for the practicing poet, that is, for the practice of poetry.”

I had known the speaker, Burt Blume, way back since he served as program assistant in Paul Engle’s International Writing Program in Iowa. He had since made his residence in Japan, successfully entering the competitive but materially rewarding field of copywriting.

From his first and only book, Evasions, I recall the lines:

You go on as a wish
trailing its oriental gown of light,

sifting through thickest air,
a song of stone, a measure of moonlight. . .

You go on.

This evening five years later, gorging on a traditional Japanese epicurean feast that includes four colors of seaweed, he confesses to have temporarily given up on his poetry. There is no time, no mood, the milieu is not right, not right for it here. . . I look down at the quail egg resting on a bed of burgundy seaweed; I “sift… through thickest air.”

After a string of nightcaps at Roppongi’s Hard Rock Café, Burt and his pretty Japanese girl Hiromi drop me off by the Yasukuni Shrine. I’d like to walk the rest of the way home to Virgil’s at Fujimicho, I explain, I need the air after all that Scotch, sake and beer, else the couplets may not come in the morning. We wave goodbye for the night.

I trudge hurriedly on through the shrine, shivering in sixteen-degree weather—a clear fifteen-degree difference from tropic warmth back home. A scream rends the air. To the ear it is a grand chiche, but the eye is startled by an uncommon sight. A young man stands before the inner shrine’s torii, his right arm upraised with clenched fist punching the air. He smartly executes a turnabout, shouts some guttural lines in Japanese, marches forward, turns briskly left, the left and left again. halts, whips about to the right, raises both arms and pierces the night with another scream as if from some swollen gut. He lurches then, circles randomly about, mutters some phrases, and begins to repeat the process.

A madman, I ask myself, or a drunk? Right-wing extremist or midnight fanatic? The translations into guttural English would have to wait for the morning, perhaps trail after the couplets. Consult Virgil our trusty guide on this, I say to myself, and walk on home to end the alien night.

THE NEXT DAY it is Kazuko Shiraishi who charges in as a tsunami or a villanelle. She is recently back from a reading tour up north, this premier lady poet of Japan. Woman poet rather. Le rock star du poesie, exclaims a clipping she holds up proudly to my face as a memento of last year’s visit to Arizona, where she had been widely feted for her poetry cum jazz readings, tight electric pantsuits and reputed friendship with Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg.

She had visited Manila early in the seventies, her reputation as the Queen of Shinjuku preceding her. And in 1979 we had swam and sunned together off Makapuu Pt. in Oahu, where she had regaled me with tales of her “man-wife” back in Tokyo, he who gave excellent massage and shampooed her long black hair with unconventional diligence.

I finally met the man-wife Nobu six years later, that second evening of readings at the Grand Hall. Blowing bravely on a five-foot-long Australian aborigine’s wooden pipe, or didgeridoo, he provided accompaniment to Kazuko’s throaty manifestos on sexual and mythopoetical history. The Shiraishi performance was spellbinding as usual, though not one word made itself understood, to me anyway. The predominantly Japanese audience lapped it all up in grander hush, with most nodding their heads approvingly, appreciatively.

The venerable Kenneth Rexroth, who edited her English-translation volume, Seasons of Sacred Lust, had written of Kazuko in his introduction: “Her poetry can be soft and sweet at times, but mostly it has a slashing rhythm read in what she refers to as her ‘Samurai movie voice.’ Her effect of audiences is spectacular. There is the secret of Shiraishi as a person and poet. She is a thoroughly efficient performer and her poetry projects as does that of very few other poets anywhere. Her parents are Dylan Thomas and Voznesensky. She is also a woman of spectacular beauty.”

At fifty-three, dear amazing Kazuko has preserved her youthful face and figure, and now she undulated onstage in skintight gold sequined pants, using her “Samurai movie voice” to wonderful effect. I imagine that the poem she reads is one from that volume of erotica Rexroth had helped put out. Memory helps ferret out some lines, and in the dim hall the alien city begins to make sense.

I’m like Buddha
At last I’ve settled down on this town
October’s knocked me up
with boredom.
…
My Tokyo
The city that’s almost a womb
Has got me knocking on the gate
…
If I’m poking hard
The hot will in the ashes
It’s so I can burry my city completely
…
My city is
Now far distant
It snuggles close to the stranger’s face
Its head drooping on its concrete neck

(“My Tokyo”)

This is the last of three excerpts we're running from the book Connecting Flights, a travel book, an anthology of poems, stories and essays by 20 Filipino writers on 20 foreign destinations. Edited by Ruel S. De Vera, with poems, stories and essays by Dean Francis Alfar, Butch Dalisay, Lourd De Veyra, Karla Delgado, Chato Garcellano, Ramil Digal Gulle, Jing Hidalgo, Alya Honasan, Marne Kilates, Sarge Lacuesta, Ambeth Ocampo, Charlson Ong, Manuel Quezon III, D.M. Reyes, Sev Sarmenta, Alice M. Sun-Cua, Yvette Tan, Joel Toledo, Krip Yuson and Jessica Zafra.

MASK MASAYA 'TO! ] A call for portfolios to a photography workshop on portraits and identity

The Apprentice and her Master, 2008

Marc Lathuillière, the French lensman behind “France Face Lost,” will hold a free workshop from 10am to 3pm at Silverlens Gallery on January 30 and February 6 sponsored by Alliance Francaise, followed by an artist’s talk at Silverlens on February 6 at 6pm to introduce his work and artistic approach.

Dealing with French identity and observing France after an extended stay in Asia, Lathuillière questions the stereotypes on which we build our identities with his use of masks. From Provence to Normandy, and from Bordeaux to Metz, more than four hundred people have already let him take their “de-faced” portraits.


The Quality Meat, 2008

THE WORKSHOP

Day 1, 10am-3pm (5 hrs): From Psychological to Masked Portrait
Participants are invited to bring national costumes (Maria Clara, terno, barong, malong, etc.) and examples of their photographic works, either printed or on a USB flash drive. This session will be spent mostly in the studio.

Day 2, 10am-3pm (5 hrs): From masked to contextual portrait
This second session will be spent mostly outdoors. Participants are invited to bring their own mask. It would be helpful if those who have their own laptops could bring them to the session.

Feb 06, Saturday, 6pm: Artist Talk
“How is it possible to take pictures of the other, whether as a local or a foreigner? What can photography tell us about identity construction? Here are the questions I intend to raise with this Unmasking.”- Marc Lathuillière


The Provence Winegrower, 2008

APPLICATION PROCESS

Participants to the workshop must first apply for a slot by submitting a portfolio of their works in PDF form along with a CV to Leonore Casuga at manage@silverlensphoto.com. Applicants may also send a cd to Silverlens Gallery, 2nd Floor YMC Building, 2320 Pasong Tamo Extension, Makati City, 1231. Applicants may include their website address in their CV as a supplement, but still need to submit a portfolio in PDF form.

The portfolio should be submitted by December 31. The list of accepted participants will be announced on January 16, 2010.

Marc Lathuillière’s exhibition of photographs “France Face Lost” opens at the Alliance Française Total Gallery on Tuesday, February 2, 2010, with cocktails at 6:30 pm. It will be on exhibit until February 25, 2010.

For inquiries, contact Silverlens Gallery at 2/F YMC Bldg. II, 2320 Pasong Tamo Ext., Makati, 816-0044, 0917-5874011, or manage@silverlensphoto.com. Gallery hours are Monday to Friday 10am–7pm and Saturdays 1–6pm. www.silverlensphoto.com / slab.silverlensphoto.com.

All photographs by Marc Lathuilliere, courtesy of Silverlens Gallery.

KARLA DELGADO ON BARCELONA ] Breathing Barcelona

“Those who search in the laws of nature to create new works collaborate with the Creator.” --Unknown

BARCELONA. Uttering the name of my favorite city makes me smile. I feel at home here. I always have.

From the mountains of Tibidabo, I behold the city of my dreams, lovingly cupped by the slopes of the land.

“Huele a Baguio,” I tell my friends. It smells like Baguio.

The scent of pine swirls in the wind. Our host, Catalan artist Frederic Amat, plucks a golden rose from his garden of pine, cypress and olive trees. “For you,” he says grandly. I bury my face in the petals. I am transported to 40 Kisad Road, Baguio City, to my childhood home in the mountains, where my mother always kept a vase of fresh roses from the garden. The roses were mostly red and gold, the colors of Catalonia.
From this hillside perch in the neighborhood of Vallvidrera, looking out towards the Mediterranean Sea, I spot some of Barcelona’s landmarks: the Sagrada Familia basilica built by Catalonia’s most famous architect, Antoni Gaudí, and the two towers erected for the 1992 Olympic Games which powered the city’s renewal.

My own history in this city begins in 1983: I am in Barcelona for my senior year of high school. I am sixteen, a transplant from an all-girls’ Catholic boarding school in England. I live with a foster family: “mi mamá española”, as I call her, is a nurse named Petri who works in a hospital in the outskirts of the city; “mi hermana española”, Maricarmen, is a student exactly my age. We have each wished for a sister all our lives, and now we have each other.

We bask in the excitement and constancy of sisterhood, and indulge in the company of each other’s friends. We sit at outdoor cafes and soak in the sunshine while sipping bitter–tart Fanta Limón. Like other teenagers, we go for strolls on Las Ramblas, described by the poet Federico García Lorca as “the only street in the world which I wish would never end.” The tree-lined Ramblas teems with tourists, flower vendors, bird keepers and performance artists.

We wander the interiors of these dimly lit clubs, and dance until beads of moisture blanket our backs. By 9 P.M., we are walking home, the wind drinking the sweat on our satisfied faces.

Some Sunday afternoons, we dance to Euro pop at local dance clubs, or at the warehouse venues like Studio 54 (pronounced “estudio cincuenta y cuatro”), named after its famed sister discotheque in New York. Doors open to teenagers at the wholesome hour of 5pm. We wander the interiors of these dimly lit clubs, and dance until beads of moisture blanket our backs. By 9 P.M., we are walking home, the wind drinking the sweat on our satisfied faces.

My year in Barcelona is a year of awakening. Coming from four years in England, I emerge like a butterfly from the chrysalis I have spun for protection in the emotionally cold landscape of boarding school. The sun literally warms my skin. On the inside, I am warmed by the maternal and sisterly love and companionship of Petri and Maricarmen.

One Sunday afternoon in the spring of my seventeenth year, I meet a boy while dancing. His name is César. He is half Spanish, half Italian, and studying to be a football coach. He treats me with utmost respect and tenderness: a proper gentleman at seventeen. We stroll hand in hand, sit on the benches of Parc de la Ciutadella and Parc Güell, and kiss ardently in the shade of Mediterranean palms. We are each other’s first loves.

My year in Barcelona ends with a massive flood of tears. I cry for three days and experience what it means to have no tears left. On the last day of the school year, my friends and I stay up all night and watch the day dawn in Parc Güell. We sit on the ground, in the stillness of early morning, and give reverence to what has been the best year of our lives. Gaudi’s mosaic sculptures watch silently.


This is second of three excerpts we're running from the book Connecting Flights, a travel book, an anthology of poems, stories and essays by 20 Filipino writers on 20 foreign destinations. Edited by Ruel S. De Vera, with poems, stories and essays by Dean Francis Alfar, Butch Dalisay, Lourd De Veyra, Karla Delgado, Chato Garcellano, Ramil Digal Gulle, Jing Hidalgo, Alya Honasan, Marne Kilates, Sarge Lacuesta, Ambeth Ocampo, Charlson Ong, Manuel Quezon III, D.M. Reyes, Sev Sarmenta, Alice M. Sun-Cua, Yvette Tan, Joel Toledo, Krip Yuson and Jessica Zafra.

LIV TO TELL ] Liv Vinluan on her first one-woman show

"Emotion is a big thing for me in my works," says Liv. "I constantly ask myself' how would it be like to be in their shoes, and try to draw from that and develop an idea." He Spoke, And It Was Written In The Sky, 2009, 5 ft by 7ft, oil on canvas

We saw Liv Vinluan defend her graduating thesis last March at the UPFA, and tonight she holds court at the Tall Gallery of Finale Art File for her first solo show. "It is extremely nerve-racking to be on your own," Liv tells us. "Before this it was usually a group show, and I guess, you have a bit more space to relax and just let it be. But this was very different. I was on my own and the space wasn't just some space--it's (Finale) a huge, wide, tall place! I had to tell myself, 'Ok, this ain't a joke.'" The exhibit, called "No Earthly Lord Will Bleed You Dry," includes the works from her thesis and new ones that carry on the theme of history and devastation.

How does she know if a piece is done/when she's done with a piece? "When I want to move on to making the next one." Quite The Beast Beauty's Become", 2009, 6 ft by 4 ft, oil on canvas


The last six months was spent working on the show, preceded by a month spent just "lolling about" thinking of what she wanted to say and how to say it. She knew she still wanted it to echo the motif of the works she showed the defense panel last March. The Ondoy tragedy which happened halfway through completing the works, had a huge impact on the artist. "After that, you just really get a really clearer sense of things. Art-wise, ideas were clearer too. I knew now that I wanted to delve more into catastrophe, what people do to get through and survive--and how far one goes to survive. Most of the time we forget who we are, and we become animals along the way."

"Ninety-percent of the time really, the works are about other people, and what they've been through." My Faith Was Never Yours (from the artist's thesis, Sin Verguenzas), 9 ft by 6 ft, oil on canvas


Liv Vinluan's No Earthly Lord Will Bleed You Dry is curated by Leo Abaya, and will be on show at the Tall Gallery of the Finale Art File in Pasong Tamo, Makati until December 31.

ALYA HONASAN ON BHUTAN ] Peace in the Tiger's Nest

BHUTAN can change you. You are silenced by its beauty, humbled by the open hearts of its people, and saddened by the fact that you will have to leave this true Shangri-La one day, and that the world has darkened your own heart so much that you cannot live here forever.

But, as my friend Audrey said, we can always carry the happiness of Bhutan with us wherever we go. This Himalayan kingdom is everything that the mythical mountain paradise could be, a small land of endless green hills cloaked in snow in the winter, and pine trees that share the skies with colorful prayer flags, tied on posts or strung over ridges so the wind can carry petitions to the gods. The valleys are filled with sheep, crystal rivers and people who deeply love their wise king so much they won't let him step down!

Squeezed between its chaotic neighbors, India and China, and most recently, Nepal, Bhutan is a devoutly Buddhist land, and its people practice a complex kind of tantric Mahayana Buddhism called Drukpa Kagyu. Almost each family boasts of a son who becomes a monk, sent to live in one of Bhutan's stunning monasteries and dzongs, centers of both secular and religious authority, where monks and government administrators share space in centuries-old buildings that are architectural wonders in themselves.

It is in the monasteries (called goembas or lakhangs), however, where even the most skeptical traveler can find a silence that is truly not of this world. Inevitably, some of these monasteries are difficult to reach, like Chimi Lakhang in Punakha, sitting amidst beautiful rice fields and dedicated to a beloved Buddhist saint, the colorful "Divine Madman" Lama Drukpa Kunley; or even the quiet little Cheri Goemba, overlooking the Dodina Valley near Thimpu, where a young monk served us sudja (tea with milk and butter) in his little room.

In some parts of the stairs, with no hand railings, there is nothing between you and the wide open space, and we stuck gingerly to the face of the mountain. At the halfway point, before the final climb to the monastery's doorstep, a beautiful waterfall gushes from the rocks

Probably the most imposing and famous of all, however, is Taktshang Goemba, the Tiger's Nest, which was seemingly impossibly carved from the side of a cliff over nine hundred meters above the floor of the Paro Valley. Estimated to have been around since the ninth century, Taktshang peeps down through low clouds, a holy site to where Guru Rinpoche, one of Bhutan's most important religious figures, was believed to have flown on the back of a flying tigress, and where he meditated for several days.

There are three vantage points on the way up to Taktshang. First stop, after an hour's uphill hike, brings you to a chorten (stupa) festooned with prayer flags at two thousand, six hundred meters, a short walk from a cafeteria where hikers usually stop for meals. The way up is covered in lush greens, with the occasional rhododendron flowers blooming on the mountainside. You can stop here, sipping tea, with the monastery looming above you in the seemingly unreachable distance. But we were in for a pleasant surprise: our guide, Tshering, had a permit to enter the monastery, which can be visited only by special arrangement.

The next leg is another hour's climb up to about three thousand meters, to a viewpoint on the same level as the monastery. The air is cool and fresh, the view spectacular. Our bodies were warmed by the climb, but even after just a few minutes' rest, we could again feel the chill on our skin. This wasn't the end, however; getting to Taktshang means crossing a huge chasm by walking down and up stone stairs, over seven hundred in all, another half-hour's journey. In some parts of the stairs, with no hand railings, there is nothing between you and the wide open space, and we stuck gingerly to the face of the mountain. At the halfway point, before the final climb to the monastery's doorstep, a beautiful waterfall gushes from the rocks, under a bridge and down to the valley.

Finally, entering Taktshang, we left our shoes and belongings with the guards and walked into a religious ceremony, where the monks chanted and banged drums in a temple that was hazy with incense. We had already been blessed with perfect weather, not too hot but with no rain; inside the temples, we were blessed further with incense and holy water, poured into our hands and spread over the tops of our heads. Outside, we reveled in the magnificent view, with only the sound of chanting and the whistling wind.

Before climbing back down, we peered into the cave where the Guru sat in meditation, feeling the palpable power of this sacred site. We left some money in offering for temple repairs, and a monk tied bright-colored prayer strings around our necks. I wore mine for weeks until it broke, a constant reminder of the peace I found after the hard climb to the Tiger's Nest.


This is first of three excerpts we're running from the book Connecting Flights, a travel book, an anthology of poems, stories and essays by 20 Filipino writers on 20 foreign destinations. Edited by Ruel S. De Vera, with poems, stories and essays by Dean Francis Alfar, Butch Dalisay, Lourd De Veyra, Karla Delgado, Chato Garcellano, Ramil Digal Gulle, Jing Hidalgo, Alya Honasan, Marne Kilates, Sarge Lacuesta, Ambeth Ocampo, Charlson Ong, Manuel Quezon III, D.M. Reyes, Sev Sarmenta, Alice M. Sun-Cua, Yvette Tan, Joel Toledo, Krip Yuson and Jessica Zafra.

THE INVITE ] Erik Matti's most personal film has arrived

Saw this on my table the other day and thought it an invite to some big time lifestyle-oriented kasosyalan. But the matte black envelope sealed with a candlewax stamp bearing the initials EM turned out to be from the director Erik Matti, and inside was a four-page letter inviting me to the screening of his first full-length feature in three years (his last was the Bong Revilla-starrer Exodus). It was not lifestyle material but it is shushal: by invitation only for a one-time public screening. And big time: it will be at the CCP.

The film is called The Arrival, and it is the director-writer-cook’s most personal film. So personal that the four-page letter was written in longhand. Or so I thought. I texted a friend to ask if Erik indeed painstakingly wrote each invitation. “Please say yes,” I added. Wouldn’t that have been so chic? And I remember Erik saying while on the road to drop me off at home na sumasakit na kamay niya sa kakasulat ng imbitasyon! Of course I learned last night that 500 people have been invited to the event. It would indeed be chic if he had written each one of the invites longhand personally, but it would also be kind of crazy (although producing your own film in this day and age and not charging your audience for it is already kind of crazy).

“Finally I have made a film that waited for me without the hounding of a playdate," Erik wrote. "A film understanding enough to let me be and not rush me in my erratic and laidback ways. A film that not for once questioned or judged me at anything that I make it tell. A film that has trusted me all the way over and beyond it ever could.

“Finally, I have produced a film that respected its creator despite its weaknesses and flaws, its arrogance and conceit."

In the past three years, he has tried his hand at writing a book (still unpublished), opened and run a successful bar (Mogwai at Cubao X) and created its menu, directed TVCs, and shamelessly performed a lap dance wearing only a pair of skimpy animal-print trunks in a promo short for this year's Cinemalaya. "All these just to satisfy my need to create."

The Arrival looks like a small film with a small-time main character. "A fictional sort of documentary-type narrative feature that tells the coming-of-age story of a 46-year-old loner named Leo."

“Is it possible to follow a person’s uneventful, almost insignificant life and still make it exciting enough to be a movie that an audience would want to experience from start to finish?”

We’ll see. Although we already heard from those who’ve seen it in advance that it’s quite a triumph. Anyway, from the invite alone, we’re already impressed.

SING SHOTS ] Silverlens hosts Singapore photo festival in Manila

On December 11 to January 9, select works from the Singapore International Photography Festival (SIPF) 2008 will travel to Manila for a month long exhibition.

SIPF satellite partner, Silverlens Gallery, hosts the visual feast for the Filipino community, providing extended exposure for the select SIPF 2008 photographers.

The SIPF is a biennial gathering of minds from around the world with the common pursuit of advancing the art and appreciation of photography. The 2008 SIPF hosted juried exhibitions, workshops, and portfolio reviews. Isa Lorenzo, Silverlens Creative Director was one of the panelists of SIPF 2008, participating in the portfolio critiques, as well as giving a talk on Collecting Photography.



“This exhibition at Silverlens is a selection of work from the juried shows. We are happy to be part of this network that shows interesting and powerful photography”, Lorenzo says. On a broader scale, SIPF presents a key platform to discover, nurture and propel Southeast Asian photographers onto the international stage.

“Among the many objects that surround us, a small photograph could be the most amazing object. It carries you away, it touches you, teleporting you in time, through memory and imagination,” says Terence Yeung, Curator of SIPF 2008.



The SIPF exhibition at Silverlens Gallery opens on Friday, December 11, and runs until Saturday, January 9. For more information and inquiries, please contact 816-0044_, manage@silverlensphoto.com or visit the gallery’s website at www.silverlensphoto.com / www.silverlensphoto.com/slab.


All photographs by Vee Speers from The Birthday Series. Courtesy of Silverlens Gallery.

SEND IN THE CLOWNS ] Luis Lorenzana's Midnight Lullaby

Midnight Lullaby, detail, 2009

The Midnight Lullaby is a solo exhibit at SLab’s 20Square Gallery by Luis Lorenzana named after the largest piece included in the show which Lorenzana worked on for three years.

“This particular work is larger in scale, which means that I really needed the time to finish it. I turned down solo exhibit offers from galleries abroad in the process, explaining to them that I owe my beloved country this exhibit,” says Lorenzana.

Seen largely as a preview to a grander solo show in September 2010, The Midnight Lullaby combines the artist’s technical application of the play between light and shadow, while staying true to his pop art, animation and surreal imagery influences.

“I’m fascinated with clowns – so deep, tragic, mysterious, and alone. So many different emotions can be expressed just by using a clown’s face.”

The Midnight Lullaby opens at 6 pm on Friday, December 11, 2009, and runs until January 09 at SLab’s 20Square Gallery.