Exhibitions
View Allure Gallery
ALLURE
An Intimate Look at the Filipina
By Jack Teotico
Defining and redefining the Filipina has been, to say the least, a challenging task for the greatest artists and poets of our country. What does it mean to be a Filipina? Who is she?
Is she the demure and delicately attractive woman that is Rizal’s Maria Clara? Or is she the peasant woman – the figure of manual labor and hard work idealized by our social realist painters in the 1970s and 80s? Could she be the sweet, adoring mother cradling her infant child? Or is she the mystical Diwata, a beacon of many of our folktales?
Could she be all these and more?
Sixty-four year old artist Lydia Velasco, leader of the Kulay Marikina Group of Artists and senior member of the Saturday Group of Artists, dares to answer this question. She takes on the challenge anew and focuses her creative energy on what has been her lifelong concern: painting the Filipina.
In her new show “Allure: An Intimate Look at the Filipina” (opens on February 8, 2007 at Galerie Joaquin in San Juan), we see a more confident and even more daring and experimental Velasco.
This latest collection follows the heels of successful stints at two Sotheby's auctions, which have spurred international interest in Velasco and have drawn record prices for her paintings. Aside from Singapore and Hong Kong, her works have found their way to Japan, Germany, the U.K., as well as to US cities such as Washington D.C., Florida and San Francisco.
Velasco's skill at handling the Filipina as a subject for painting is unparalleled. In “Allure,” she continues to paint the Filipina as she has always done – boldly and sensually. Her Filipinas are creatures of inner beauty and confidence, women with long limbs and seductive smiles. Her work in “Allure” adds manifold dimensions to the beloved character we know as the Filipina.
Notably, “Allure” is also a call for national identity. In her latest work, Velasco’s women proudly don Philippine fineries such as the callado and the panuelo, breathtakingly rendered in the manner of the best embroiderers of Kalibo and Lumban. She also dresses them up in the striped textiles of turn of the century (19th) Philippines, and adorns them with flowers like the sampaguita and the gumamela.
Also found in this collection are señoritas set against a backdrop of Filipino art nouveau patterns, or adorned with the poinetta, the cameo, the scapular or the tambourine.
These works can only be a fitting celebration for Philippine National Arts Month. For us at the Galerie Joaquin Group, we can only express how thrilled and honored we are to have been chosen as the venue for such an exciting exhibit.
An Intimate Look at the Filipina
By Jack Teotico
Defining and redefining the Filipina has been, to say the least, a challenging task for the greatest artists and poets of our country. What does it mean to be a Filipina? Who is she?
Is she the demure and delicately attractive woman that is Rizal’s Maria Clara? Or is she the peasant woman – the figure of manual labor and hard work idealized by our social realist painters in the 1970s and 80s? Could she be the sweet, adoring mother cradling her infant child? Or is she the mystical Diwata, a beacon of many of our folktales?
Could she be all these and more?
Sixty-four year old artist Lydia Velasco, leader of the Kulay Marikina Group of Artists and senior member of the Saturday Group of Artists, dares to answer this question. She takes on the challenge anew and focuses her creative energy on what has been her lifelong concern: painting the Filipina.
In her new show “Allure: An Intimate Look at the Filipina” (opens on February 8, 2007 at Galerie Joaquin in San Juan), we see a more confident and even more daring and experimental Velasco.
This latest collection follows the heels of successful stints at two Sotheby's auctions, which have spurred international interest in Velasco and have drawn record prices for her paintings. Aside from Singapore and Hong Kong, her works have found their way to Japan, Germany, the U.K., as well as to US cities such as Washington D.C., Florida and San Francisco.
Velasco's skill at handling the Filipina as a subject for painting is unparalleled. In “Allure,” she continues to paint the Filipina as she has always done – boldly and sensually. Her Filipinas are creatures of inner beauty and confidence, women with long limbs and seductive smiles. Her work in “Allure” adds manifold dimensions to the beloved character we know as the Filipina.
Notably, “Allure” is also a call for national identity. In her latest work, Velasco’s women proudly don Philippine fineries such as the callado and the panuelo, breathtakingly rendered in the manner of the best embroiderers of Kalibo and Lumban. She also dresses them up in the striped textiles of turn of the century (19th) Philippines, and adorns them with flowers like the sampaguita and the gumamela.
Also found in this collection are señoritas set against a backdrop of Filipino art nouveau patterns, or adorned with the poinetta, the cameo, the scapular or the tambourine.
These works can only be a fitting celebration for Philippine National Arts Month. For us at the Galerie Joaquin Group, we can only express how thrilled and honored we are to have been chosen as the venue for such an exciting exhibit.