The fab four go for high notes
MANILA, Philippines - Altro Mondo is a gallery that prides itself in taking the lead in coming up with innovative art projects. To celebrate its first anniversary, the gallery is doing just that. For the first time, internationally renowned artists Pat Andrea, Ernest Pignon-Ernest, Antonio Seguí and Vladimir Velickovic will exhibit their works together in “High Notes.”
This is a source of enthusiasm for Remigio “Boy” David, the owner and artistic director of the gallery. In featuring the works of these leading figurative painters, David hopes to arouse the viewers’ interest and rouse their creative fervor.
“My purpose is to build up and enrich the quality of artworks that can be made available for public viewing. This rare exhibition proposes to enable the rigorous and exalting enterprise of living in the work of the acclaimed artists, who invent forms and objects; to follow the creative process and learn how to read their oeuvres with insight,” David discloses.
“We are showcasing very accomplished and multi-awarded artists. They are all Paris-based and are highly acclaimed for their stylistic contributions to the neo-figuration movement.”
Vladimir Velickovic – Harmonizing Ironies
Vladimir Velickovic, a prominent Serbian painter, endured the atrocities of war as a child. Images of carnage and mayhem were wedged in his memory. Man’s penchant to inflict harm and violence upon his fellow man baffles the artist to this day. One may surmise that Velickovic’s representations are instantaneously cogent due to its familiar thematic content. “The power of Velickovic’s art and the intense expression emanating from his subjects are always current and does not leave room for indifference,” elaborates Bartolome.
Pat Andrea – Reverberating Alternate Realities
Pat Andrea is a Dutch painter who is considered one of the prominent figures in the area of neo figuration and magic realism. His works are characterized by a balance of contradictions. He depicts highly charged portrayals of amorous desires coupled with carnal frustrations which can be described as both sensual and subversive. According to Antares Gomez Bartolome, marketing and press relations manager of Altro Mondo, “His art presents alternate realities, offering re-situations of the everyday that are loaded with anxiety.” 
Ernest Pignon-Ernest – Echoing Urbanscapes
French artist Ernest Pignon-Ernest’s classical draftsmanship has taken the covert street art practice to a distinct plane of aesthetic. His posters and drawings clandestinely find their way in highly-regulated spaces — cathedrals, government institutions, opera houses and the like. Pignon-Ernest’s juxtapositions make visible important issues like apartheid, the HIV epidemic and the nuclear arms race. “Pignon-Ernest works with a visual vocabulary that is richly steeped in classic figuration and brings the gestures of Michelangelo, Fra Angelico and Caravaggio to urban settings and contemporary concerns,” states Bartolome.
Antonio Seguí – Accenting Human Conditions
Born in Argentina, Antonio Seguí draws from his past and couples it with various vignettes to personify a particular mood or moment. He uses El Senor Gustavo, a recurring presence in his works, as a witness to the various events and happenings of the city. Akin to comic strips or editorial cartoons, Seguí merges personal and collective memory, thereby, taking and conveying the city’s pulse. “Seguí’s artistic expressions are at times grim but they are never lacking in humor and constantly infused with the energy of human pursuits,” Bartolome articulates.
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“High Notes” opens on June 26 at Altro Mondo–Arte Contemporanea, third floor, Greenbelt 6 in Makati City. The exhibit features the works of Andrea, Pignon-Ernest, Seguí and Velickovic.
