Exhibit pays tribute to Maningning Miclat

Shortly after Maningning Miclat’s death last September, a number of accounts and eulogies saw print in magazines and newspapers, including in the pages of the Philippine Star. She was, after all, a gifted person who wrote poetry and prose, translated in three languages (Pilipino, Mandarin and English), taught and studied art, as well as painted on canvas. But among the things that were written about her, it was her work as a painter that received little attention.

To address this gap, the Ateneo Library of Women’s Writings (or ALIWW) mounted an exhibition as a tribute to her prodigious creativity. Dr. Edna Manlapaz, the executive director of ALIWW, recalls conversations with Maningning where she expressed enthusiasm on the library’s holdings and soon after deposited her written works to its archives. But the number and sizes of paintings that Maningning created during her lifetime astounded Manlapaz even more. When I surveyed the Pardo de Tavera room of the Ateneo Library where the exhibition was held, it was the first time I began to appreciate Maningning’s body of work. Here was a survey of what she had done in the past until shortly before her death. Roberto Chabet, her former teacher at the University of the Philippines’ College of Fine Arts, carefully selected and designed the small retrospective exhibition of twenty paintings.

The exhibit began with a figurative oil painting of Maningning’s friend, Kelly, with her baby. It is an intimate but salient depiction of a private moment between a new mother and her infant. Perhaps because the artist knew her subject well, the painting was a portrait rather than just a scene of domestic bliss. The other works on display showed Maningning’s ability to handle different media, adapting her graphic representations of her subject as well as her use of materials to suit her ideas. A set of three ink-and-brush paintings gives us an inkling of the intensity of her training in Chinese painting. Her lines, like her calligraphic handwriting, are clean and spontaneous.

Seemingly connected with those are four pen-and-ink works on handmade paper. Maningning’s focus on detail was exemplified by her use of pointillism with just a pen to create the abstract forms. The precision and energy she invested in them is an indication of her discipline as a visual artist. She leaves nothing to chance as she fully conceptualized what she was about to do. In these works, she acknowledges the texture of the paper and proceeded to stretch the range of her abilities to create images. Her lack of fear to experiment with two dimensional materials, techniques and forms demonstrates her free spirit, unshackled by the requirements of an art market that demands artists to stick to one style or one look.

Two paintings demonstrate that she preferred to work on paintings in pairs. "Aria I," for instance has a finer but more vigorous and demanding work on details, while "Shards II" uses thicker lines that are drawn more openly. The former suggests focus while the latter, restlessness. Both are predominantly blue-black and emphasize asymmetrical patterns whose center depends on where viewers might want to rest their eyes.

Continuing working with the concept of dualism, two artworks in the exhibition defined further her explorations of pairs. "Defining Her (Blue)" and "Defining Her (Red)" are almost like mirror images worth a place in a game of spot-the-difference. Like the two works I mentioned earlier, these figurative works resemble prints. But unlike them, this pair is like a diptych whose images will not look complete without the other. The upper part of the frame cuts the forehead, as their arms are positioned like classical nudes that appear to be in the middle of stretching their limbs. Their legs remind me of French Post-Impressionist painter Henri Matisse’s seated nudes.

Midway as I went around the small gallery, it dawned on me that the exhibition reminded me of my impressions of Maningning: an artist almost childlike in her quest for new ways of expressing her ideas. She was passionate about almost anything and her paintings revealed this attitude towards life. "Trouble in Paradise" is a big oil on canvas that epitomized her later work. She applied thick paint on the canvas with uneven brushstrokes that seemed to match the intensity of her emotions. It won the 1992 Art Association of the Philippines Grand Prize. Chabet, her former teacher, recalls how Maningning made a grid-by-grid study of this piece in his class. She prepared for this work by first making those grids using pastel on paper. She applied them in layers of colors and proceeded this careful rendering using oil paint. Maningning further developed this method of painting in a related and same-sized 1994 work entitled "The Agony of Rebirth."

In the middle of the room, two glass cases held precious materials of and about Maningning. One glass case held her bound sketches and collages done during her days as Chabet’s student. In one, it opened to a photocopy of her teacher’s portrait drawn by fellow artist Danilo Dalena. In the other, a page from a notebook with notes on the Venn Diagram when Maningning was a math student at the University of the Philippines—Baguio. Mementos also filled the other glass case: photo of Maningning’s mural, "Soliloquy," that was exhibited at the CCP Little Theater Lobby and the death mask cast by National Artist Napoleon Abueva during her funeral.

The exhibit of Maningning’s body of work ended with "Sarilaysay," one of the last paintings she made. The oil on canvas work was first exhibited early last year at the Surrounded by Water Gallery, an artists-run space. It was also reproduced as a cover for a book. The way she painted "Sarilaysay" had resonance with "Kelly and her Baby." In a way, the intimate portraits were a fitting way to round up Maningning’s achievements in the visual arts.

What is it about the suicide of a young woman artist that stirs up reflexive responses from those who survive it? It affected me, especially after viewing the exhibition, in terms of the context within which Maningning worked. French sociologist Emile Durkheim examined suicide in the early 20th century by studying rates of occurrence rather than incidence. He surmised that these differing rates are explained in terms of different social milieu in which they occur. I am more inclined to look at Maningning’s death based on its social condition rather than her motive. It would not be far-fetched to blame her environment for contributing to her despair. Young artists working in an often-difficult cultural system, such as that Maningning perceived the Manila art scene, despair at the lack of support. Sometimes drinking alcohol becomes a recourse to assuage the pang artists feel as a result of doing art in a setting that is based on personalities rather than on the merits of their artwork. Maningning was not so obliging towards this and tried hard to remain lucid most of the time.

Perhaps one of the problems may have to do with curators and art writers not taking sufficient time to see and understand what younger artists are currently doing. Instead of survey exhibitions to gauge the state of visual arts, for instance, exhibition programs that compels them to fit into themes and forms have become the norm for museum practice in this country. A small retrospective, such as this one ALIWW mounted for Maningning, may have been the sort of support many artists of her generation would benefit from to be able to show where they are coming from and what they have been doing so far. It might have been too late for Maningning to relish the attention from the exhibition in her honor. But it could be a start as a model in creating a more supportive social condition for young artists. This is one way we can keep Maningning’s memory and spirit alive.

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