Sunday, February 20, 2011

Amazing Paper Art

I love the website Stumbleupon.com. Today I Stumbled Upon this online article that features amazing paper art.





See more paper art here!

Monday, February 14, 2011

Happy Valentine's Day!

Let's get drunk on love!

Photo from Design Love Fest

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Remembering Lee Aguinaldo

Last night I attended the book launching of The Art and Life of Lee Aguinaldo in Ateneo. To be honest, I didn't know who Lee Aguinaldo was. I simply attended the launch, not because I was a fan of the artist's works, but to support my professor who was one of the authors and to cover it for Mega Magazine.

I soon discovered, as the organizers showed us a short documentary on him, that Lee is the father of Philippine abstract-expressionism. Let me repeat: the father of Philippine abstract-expressionism.

Now, in all the time that I've been loving art, reading about it, studying it, discussing it with friends, why the heck did I not know who the father of Philippine abstract-expressionism was?!

According to the documentary, Lee was born to wealth, but he gave it all away for a life of art. Lee's father disapproved of his work as an artist and wanted his son instead to carry on the family business (selling high end furniture) and, thus, help carry on the family legacy. I'll skip all the details since it would be better to read about Lee's life story by reading the book. But what I would like to share is that in the end, as the family business folded, it was Lee's legacy as an artist that ended up continuing the family name. Ironic, right?

During the program, Lee's son shared that his father lived life with a devil-may-care attitude--and, by looking at the retrospective exhibit of Lee's works in the Ateneo Art Gallery, one can surmise that it was this attitude that fueled the fire he put into each artwork. Each piece was an awakening to me, literally. The strokes, the colors, the subjects--all the elements in his works just scream at you, they beckon you, they affect you.

But I won't go on anymore about my personal experience of Lee's works. I'm posting photos of several of his pieces so you can experience them for yourself. Enjoy!! (I apologize in advance for the low quality shots; I wasn't allowed to use my camera's flash)

Lee's Portraits:

Self-portrait, 1985, mixed media (photograph and acrylic mounted on plywood), 14cm x 12cm


Self-portrait 1, 1989, mixed media on board, 25.5cm x 34.5cm


Lee at 52, taken in 1985, by Wig Tysmans, 1985, C-print, print in October 2010, 51cm x 50cm

(I added the maple leaf. Just want to maintain a PG-rating with my blog)


Pollock-inspired Works

Explosion in Earth Colors, 1963, oil on fiberboard, 122cm x 243cm


Side view of Explosion in Earth Colors so you can see the texture


Explosion No. 141, 1957, oil and enamel on canvas mounted on fiberboard, 122cm x 198cm


Detail of Explosion No. 141


In front of Explosion No. 141 with my newly (self) trimmed bangs!


Monday, August 10, 1959, oil on canvas, 88cm x 131cm


In front of Monday with my professor at UP and one of the authors of the book, Boots Herrera


Spring No. 2, 1958, oil on canvas, 76.5cm x 111.8cm

Painting in Brown, November 10, 1961, oil on canvas, 116cm x 116cm


"I paint in sections, you see. I fill in the top section first, then the center, then the sides. It's all very calculated." -- Lee Aguinaldo


Color and Linear Works

Some of Lee's linear paintings that reminded me of Mark Rothko's works


Yellow Circulation No. 2, July 29, 1975, acrylic (Aquatec) on marine plywood, 58cm x 58cm


Linear No. 3, March 23, 1965, acrylic (Aquatec) on marine plywood, 117cm x 132.5cm


Untitled (unfinished linear painting), undated, acrylic on marine plywood, 122cm x 152.5cm


Galumph Series

Galumph No. 1, January 20, 1964, acrylic on marine plywood, 122cm x 122cm


Galumphing Eye, August 2, 1964, oil and collage on marine plywood, 60.5cm x 60.5cm

(Curator's Note: The Galumph Series was inspired by Lewis Caroll's Alice in Wonderland, are gestural like his Pollock and flick series of paintings, but in bolder strokes of color. Collages by Robert Motherwell inspired some of the Galumph paintings wherein Lee incorporated paper collage images, often of nude women taken from glossy magazines)


Lee's Love of Jazz

Portrait of Nacho Trapaga, 1983, mixed media on paper mounted on plywood, 51cm x 40cm






More Illustrations





Rembrandt with White No. 2, 1990, mixed media on paper mounted on plywood, 29.5cm x 23cm


Lee's Photographs



Speed, 6/250, 1979, black and white photograph of mixed media work, 29.8cm x 39.4cm


"What keeps me alive is knowing that I am capable of surprising myself of being able to delight myself... of being able to find out that you're still capable of being creative and inventive and energetic." -- Lee Aguinaldo


Some venue pics:

These were really nice seat covers. I wonder where you can get them? I want them for my house!


The tent outside the Ateneo Art Gallery where buffet and drinks were served


If you're interested in buying The Art and Life of Lee Aguinaldo, visit vibalfoundation.org

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Romantic Black Lace

Before my main topic, first is this: Wow, I have not blogged in so long. To be honest, I've been so busy at work that I haven't had any time to do anything else but work. I haven't been attending classes for my museum studies masters degree and I haven't been able to take care of my artists for my small one-woman-run art agency. 2010 was really a busy year. Apart from planning my wedding, the magazine I work for really just got hectic because of all the revamping we did (for the print version, marketing events, TV, etc.). But the stress paid off--our magazine is at the top of its game and our competitors are scrambling to keep up. We just closed our February 2011 anniversary issue (19th) and we have a big surprise for our readers. All I can say is that we have MULTIPLE covers.

But despite the stress it gives me, my work has its many perks--one of which is keeping me in tune with what's hot in the fashion world. And yesterday I wore to work one of my favorite fall/winter 2011 trends--black lace:

(That's me on the right, wearing a Forever 21 top; on my left is our editorial assistant, Sarah)

Hence, inspired by my wardrobe, I decided to dedicate this post to this romantic-gothic look. Here's another photo of me at my wedding last April 2010 wearing black lace tights (My mother was not pleased that I wore colors other than white to my wedding, but I was never one to really follow convention):

(Black lace tights and red shoes by Zara; wedding dress, fascinator and clutch by Chris Diaz)

And here's another one of me, wearing black lace gloves sourced in Carolina's Lace Shop (given to me by fashion editor Teej Nepomuceno):

(Photo taken by Mai Kaufman at Mega Magazine's September 2010 issue wrap party at Members Only; I'm wearing neckpiece and dress by Chris Diaz for Myth)

Being a new wife, one of my favorite pastimes is looking at design blogs for inspiration for our home. One of my must-have finds are these black lace light bulbs by BrowneHsieh from the company's MothEaten line:

(Photo source: Design*Sponge)

Blogger Candy Dizon posted photos of The Peninsula Manila Hotel's newest resto, Salon De Ning. One of the photos that caught my eye was this one of the these beautiful lace chandeliers:


And, of course, since this is an art blog, I Googled "black lace artwork" and found some really nice creations:

("Black Lace" by Jennifer Poon; watercolor on paper; 64 in x 59 in)

("Black Lace" by KainApophysis)

("Petite Kokeshi" by Caracarmina)

Well, that's it for my first post for the year! Winter season is almost over and already I'm stocking up on colorful neon things for Spring/Summer. Here's a sneak peek of what I've gotten already:


So be ready to see colorful posts soon!!! Ciao for now!

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Night Owl

It's past midnight and I'm still awake. So, I thought I'd dedicate a post to one of nature's magnificent night creatures. Hoo! Hoo! (trying to hoot like an owl...)

Below is a postcard design by a friend and one of the talented young visual artists that I help manage, Nikki Abaya. If you'd like to see other postcard designs by her, I posted them in my Multiply site. Click on this link to see the album. Nikki also has a Deviant Art page you can check out. Click on this link.



Here's another pretty owl artwork I stumbled upon. It's a painting by Hadley Hutton. See more of her beautiful paintings in her website, hadleyhutton.com.



I searched Flickr for a nice photo of an owl and saw this adorable snapshot by Stephen van der Mark. He entitled it, "Happy Snow Owl." Click on the link to view the page.



While blog surfing, I came across a post by a fashion blogger (forgot her name) about Enid Collins' vintage wooden box bags. I remember that one of the bags had a colorful owl design. Since I couldn't track down the link to this blogger's post, I thought I'd search Flickr again for photos of that bag. I found one in Glumpire's photostream. This one that I posted here isn't the design that I saw, but it's a beautiful Enid Collins bag just the same. Visit Glumpire's Flickr site to see her album containing more of Enid Collins' wooden box bags.



This below, if you can imagine it, is a measuring tape! It's made out of felt with a pull tab that looks like a mushroom. Cute, isn't it? I found this in Feltmate!'s Flickr photostream. Here's the link.


And finally, I end my post with a Simpsonized version of Nite Owl. You'll find more of these Simpsonized famous characters in springfieldpunx.blogspot.com.

P.S. I have not seen Watchmen the movie. Sigh...