Villa of Mysteries

Christina Dy

An artist that continues to push the boundaries of drawing, Christina Dy has been creating large-scale charcoal and graphite works that are part drawing, performance, and installation. She also focuses on the drawing surface itself--paper, and experiments with the different ways of folding.

Recently, she has turned her attention to performance, utilizing her dance background, and combining it with her drawing practice. She is the founder and creative director of the aerial arts company Polecats Manila.

This is the next work in my DancedDrawing series, where I try to bring together my two loves- drawing and dancing.

My previous works have focused on floorwork and using my hands to draw. For this one, I wanted to create new movement pathways (and in effect create new mark-making patterns), so I decided to hang from the hammock and use my legs. And because this work is created in celebration of women’s month, I wanted to use a symbol of my sexuality and power, and also something I derive so much pleasure from— 8inch heels.

Fellow artist Marco Ortiga recrafted my Pleasers’ platforms using melted crayons. The result: I can make marks on the floor as I do legwork.

Is Jumalon

Is Jumalon is a graduate of Fine Arts at the University of The Philippines, Diliman. Hailing from Zamboanga City, she has been based in Manila since 2012 when she started college. 2016 marks the discovery of her love for large scale drawings using graphite, pastels, and acrylic. Since then she has used drawing as an expression of the continuity between herself and the larger world.

I find a human presence when in search of my subject matter. In one series, I drew chopped trunks. These trunks were draped with vines, portraying a subtle image of a veiled woman.

I looked into my interest in finding faint and familiar images in nature. For this show, the female character. The coincidental depiction of female figures and elements then become my references. At the same time, when I dive into my works, there are accidental formations with the likeness of the female image.

Yet all these are from a personal viewpoint, an opinion formed from the subtle unveiling of images. These are cracks and polish, the edges and bends of nature and the landscape. But these are also pieces that create the characters I see, unraveling a being that is my own and maybe beyond the grasp of other people. These are pieces of nature and their being and yet hold different appearances for the viewer.

Julian Udine

Julian Udine is a visual artist based in Manila, Philippines. She graduated from a Bi-College program with degrees in BA Fine Arts with Haverford College, and in BA Psychology with Bryn Mawr College.

Julian primarily works in mixed media sculpture. She draws inspiration from the ebb and flow between the human psyche and the natural world. Julian’s practice reflects her interdisciplinary background and often infuses elements of psychology and the environment. She is most interested in the synergy between dissimilar ideas, and where “the estranged” and “the naturalistic” converge.

In essence, her pieces are object-based contemplations. They crystallize a particular moment in her ever-shifting understanding of interconnectedness, and are born out of her desire to understand the world around her.

Leah Castañeda

A builder in every essence, Leah Castañeda swathes herself in a commitment to manual skill. Rooted in utilizing concrete, metal, wood, fabric and found objects, she reinvigorates materials that are often common-placed into transitional installations — vertiginous or small, to be displayed or to be used, to be revisited or to be left alone. She maximizes the fluidity of her medium, emphasizing a confluence of the mundane and the overlooked through works that depict punk meeting brutalism, neon marrying neutral, and tenderness intertwining with grit.

Spanning over two decades in the local creative industry, the shape-shifting polymath also moonlights as a fashion and production designer, furniture maker, graphic designer, space cultivator and nightlife pillar — from burgeoning shows in the nineties to handcrafting leather installations for F*ck Art, Let’s Dance in Whitespace Gallery during the noughties to recently dabbling with PVC cones and metal spikes for No Longer Will Our Mouths Beg for Water in Futur:st, to name a few.

Castaneda’s creative narratives are deeply personal and experimental. She traverses the world with a mission to reimagine, reuse and re-present; where not everything should go to waste, and where random materials are meant for meaningful reiterations.

Pauline Reynolds

Pauline Reynolds (b. 1994), has been experimenting with different modes of expression since girlhood. In her early days as an artist, Pauline primarily focused on painting and sketching, incorporating a greater deal of realism onto her works. Only recently did she start venturing off to mixed media, after realizing that this art form allowed her to be more raw, visceral, and free. Her process involves deep introspection and grounding. In the studio, she surrounds herself with found objects, figures and details ripped from vintage magazines, decrepit pieces of wood, tiles, and debris, all of which she personally sought and hand-picked. She then layers and positions each piece intricately, in a manner where the existence of one accentuates the other. A union of discarded materials and mementos, of mere fragments of what once was — Pauline’s works mirror the process of change. Pauline’s art practice focuses on the use of mixed media in assemblages, collages, sculptures, and installations.

Just like my previous works, these works are very personal to me. I find beauty in burnt and dusty piles of paper, in shattered pots and tiles, in decrepit pieces of wood, small rocks, and torn fabric. The appeal was something I couldn’t explain before, but thinking about it now, I guess it’s because of my reverence for the past and how it uniquely shapes every one of us. The memories—both the good and the bad—and the scars they leave. We have an entire history that we carry within us, and so does these things.

Roan Alvarez

Roan Alvarez earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of the Philippines, Diliman. Her works look into the identity inside the contemporary hyper-mediated world, specifically inquiring on the negotiation of identities between the physical and the virtual realm.

Alvarez primarily works with interactive transmedia— a combination of traditional and non-traditional materials and protocols, which often involves translucent and transparent materials, LED lights, microcontrollers, sensors, and other electronic components.  The incorporation of technology in her pieces enable the audience to interact with, and sometimes influence, the work.

She challenges gender socializations that have been programmed into us from birth, with the aim “to reclaim and emphasize female agency and to call into question the stereotypical views on women’s bodies, lives, and choices. In order to promote an equitable gender view, we must question gender norms and break down simplistic binary categories. Along with the aim of diminishing the influence of socialization, we must keep in mind that these roles are simply learned and that we can unlearn them. We can achieve this by empowering women and girls through fostering a supportive environment and by equipping them with information and skills in order to challenge these norms.”

Romina Diaz

Romina Diaz’s photographs portray the “feminine world” as opposed to simply the female body. She describes the feminine as a term that goes beyond bodies: “an energy that is liquid and flexible, moving around and taking shape in different forms.” Her “Delicate Violence” series includes photographs of naked female figures partially concealed by a sheet of lace. Diaz questions the viewer’s perspective on beauty, sometimes tainted by a sexualized or malicious gaze. It is her reaction to the wiring of her growing years, the preconceived modesty of having to cover up the body with layers of clothing. Now living in Florence as a grown woman surrounded by nudes as depicted in art from the Renaissance and in the companionship of women who are confident in their bodies, she is experiencing a newfound freedom that she wishes to convey. The title “Delicate Violence” refers to the silent violence of a viewer whose eyes train to the details of body parts instead of appreciating the image’s overall beauty. Part of the series are photographs of androgynous statues, their mouths and eyes covered with lace, representing the limits society places on life choices, particularly sexuality, when the expression of it does not conform to conventions.

The mounting of all-female exhibitions has been heavily debated as potentially problematic. Some have theorized that such exhibitions could further estrange and pigeonhole female artists, while others argue that as long as the under representation of women artists in museums is still very much real, all-female exhibitions will continue to be necessary and relevant.

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