The combination of the different things Antipolo has to offer inspires memories and remembrances. As a young girl, I used to accompany my mother who would religiously complete her sequence of visita iglesia and devotional novenas. Going to Antipolo marked the end of summer, and I was more enthusiastic to join her here than in other sacred places she visited. My reason was less spiritual and more instrumental, since I expected her to treat me to my favorite things, including roasted cashew nuts and toy clay pots. Many things have changed since then, particularly in terms of places to visit. After all, it is no longer the cool resort of my youth.
One of these changes involve a visual art festival at the Pintô Art Gallery, Silangan Gardens and Bahay Silangan, which opened last May 5 to celebrate May-time in Antipolo. Pintô’s resident artists and Dr. Joven Cuanang, who is a neurologist and art patron of young, figurative artists, organized the new fiesta.
"We have tried it the year before and it was a success," explains the doctor. "Now that we just recently opened a gallery here, we decided to pursue a higher profile showing of art."
He added it is the beginning of a new tradition for Antipolo.
The recreation of a ritual interests me after having observed practices that validate the old with the new. An arts festival that is a relatively recent addition to festivities can actually complement those cherished customs.
In Antipolo, the church and the Virgin of Antipolo is still the focus of the many people who go there. After all, the brown image of the Virgin Mary, resplendent in her gilded costume, is the patron saint of travelers. It is more meaningful these days as many overseas contract workers pray for good luck there before they join their mass labor dispersion to different parts of the world. Even when this was not the case yet, there were devotees who regarded the Virgin of Antipolo as belonging to their pantheon of saints, to whom they offer their novenas.
Taking up these prosaic images from past practices were a couple of the artists who participated in the May-time visual art festival. Inside Dr. Cuanang’s house, a 4 x 6 feet oil painting by Elmer Borlongan represents the second of his Antipolo series. The work shows a woman conveyed on a hammock by two men. Apparently, this is an example of a past practice when pilgrims who can afford to pay bearers carry them to the Antipolo procession.
Just outside Bahay Silangan, Neil Manalo created a suit of paintings depicting a hazy representation of the Virgin. Somehow, with this painting technique, he was making comments on the blurring of devotional religious traditions. His work also responds to the changing environment, including natural surroundings as well as built settings.
Residential subdivisions, particularly the areas outside the city-center, now mark Antipolo’s landscape. This has contributed to the rise in temperature of the once-cool hilltop resort and the shortage of water. The dryness of this summer is evident at the Silangan Gardens, which is at the back of Dr. Cuanang’s house. Set before the brown grass and parched ground are sculptures by Dan Raralio, Juan Alcazaren and Reggie Yuson. I see Raralio’s work as his acknowledgement of the lack of water around Antipolo, creating a freestanding concrete sculpture that holds a lighted fountain with a mister. The four-foot sculpture-in-the-round is a kinetic piece, with the bubbling sound of water and the spray of mist around it. This inspires a desire to quench the dryness all around it.
Interestingly, the new Antipolo May-time Festival is located in an enclave, marking the area’s settlement pattern. Last year, I wrote about Pintô as the new gallery in the eastern suburbs. This time it is the site of the Festival wherin the show’s main feature is the new art that Antipolo has to offer. In a sense, the different ranges of art on exhibit demonstrated the invited artists’ responses to the May-time celebration. These include photography, painting and pottery.
In Pintô’s Gallery I, Ava Lugtu shows her industrial photographs as transparencies on light boxes. They are almost abstract images as she focused on details of factory landscapes that are difficult to recognize for many, unfamiliar in such surroundings. Moreover, her choice of time to photograph those built environments – mainly in the late afternoon – create haunting images of isolation. They are nevertheless beautiful poetic compositions, made more dramatic since she opted to light the enlarged transparencies from the back.
On the way up to Gallery II, a few glazed vases along niches next to the stairs lead visitors to Lanelle Abueva’s pottery exhibition. They are sculptural forms that extend the view of pottery beyond functional forms. Huge, round basins that could hold fruits, for instance, can be left empty since the design on their surfaces and sides are too attractive to cover. The smaller bowls are equally exquisite as Abueva adds textures to their surfaces with glazes or even making marks on them before firing. Having a workshop next to her Antipolo restaurant, Crescent Moon Café, she has created pottery that is both good to eat from and interesting to display.
At the Cuanang residence – now known as the House gallery space – hangs Kiko Escora’s pastel and acrylic paintings. He displays in Reverie his new series of works that are in-between self-portraits and fantastic images. The results are surreal pictures with which he has been exploring in his past work. A gifted figurative painter, Escora underscores the necessity in to push the limits of two-dimensional art.
Antipolo-based artists also participated in the exhibition at Bahay Silangan. Included in the show are old and new artworks by Rolando Acuña, Antonio Leaño, Erwin Leaño, Ferdinand Montemayor, Jim Orencio, Andy Orencio, Riel Hilario, Neil Manalo, and Gemo Tapales. They displayed their exceptional skills in figurative art, as well as the ability to experiment on new approaches.
Senior artists who are renowned for their paintings also joined in the art festival. Antipolo residents Lino Severino, Alfred Liongoren and Abu Urag make it clear why they have become exceptional artists, particularly with their exhibit of watercolor paintings.
Guest artists’ participation indicates signs of this new May-time celebration’s importance. Works by Mark Justiniani, Paul Mesina, Sandra Gfeller and showbiz celebrity Jao Mapa are on view at the Bahay Silangan.
More people have now seen the importance of the new site for art. At the opening, art patrons Doña Erlinda K. Illusorio and Dr. Edith Regalado were present as a show of their support. Dance Forum artists, led by Myra Beltran, Katherine Sanchez and Donna Miranda, created dance improvisation pieces especially for the occasion. Violinist Coke Bolipata also performed during the ceremonies.
As part of new practices, the visual arts festival in that part of Antipolo may help revitalize people’s affection for the place. Going there to see art exhibits have, in a way, triggered my childhood memories. This has complemented my nostalgia for spending some leisurely Sundays that include feasting at the delightful eating places that have sprung up there. The beginning of this new May-time celebration may be a process of getting us in touch with less material reasons for the annual event. Besides the religious significance of Antipolo, it may also be a new hub for art pilgrimages.