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The Cordillera
strikes back |
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Source: Inquirer |
Author: Gino Dormiendo |
Date: 1999-11-01 |
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The Tam-awan artists strike a balance between nature and
culture, which makes their works stand out from the rest
THEY all live and work in
the same community
located in the mountain
fortress near Baguio, a
bucolic setting dotted with
authentic Ifugao houses
and surrounded by
mountain flora and fauna.
Adapting the name
Tam-awan, the Ibaloi word
for ''vantage point,'' after
which the village has been
named, these 14 artists
share a strong affinity for the arts and culture of the Cordillera,
nurturing the people's rich heritage and totally immersing
themselves in the life-ways of the indigenous folk.
It was artist Ben Cabrera (a.k.a. BenCab) who rediscovered the
site in one of his jaunts around the city's environs three years
ago and immediately saw its rich possibilities as an artists'
village. Home at last, BenCab disdained the highly damaged
urbanized environment and long dreamed of a village that was
accessible to people who did not have the chance to go to the
Cordillera interior. Erecting three knocked-huts directly
transported from Bangaan, Ifugao, he chose the site near a
spring, once used as a watering hole for cattle in this grazing
land.
Today, Tam-awan Village is home and hearth to artists, a living
museum of Cordillera livelihood and crafts, an ideal venue for
workshops, seminars and ecotours, as well as a unique resort
for tourists who want to immerse themselves in the air and lair of
a mountain village. Amid this mountain oasis, Tam-awan Village
has risen, embodying the artists' collaborative quest for a fragile
ecology where they can strike a balance between art and nature
so essential to human survival.
Many of the artists from Tam-awan Village have derived
inspiration from the country's rich indigenous culture and
nature's own bountiful affections. Their works from the village
are now on exhibit at the two branches of the Metropolitan
Gallery at the Art Walk of SM Megamall and the gallery row of
Shangri-La Plaza.
Rich images
Jordan Mang-osan, himself a true-blue Ibaloi, explores the
sloping mountain terrain where his people live. Using a
magnifying glass and employing solar energy, he creates rich
images of the pristine landscape that surrounds him.
Roshib Tibon, also a son of the place, brings to life the gallery
of familiar mountain folk at work, during leisure and performing
age-old rituals, in finely delineated acrylic portraits.
Josi Tulas combines pen-and-ink and handmade paper in
visualizing the hardy menfolk armed with their usual work
implements against a colorful ethnographic motif in the
background. Also using handmade paper as medium, Jesse
Garrovillo creates brightly hued monoprints of indigenous
design on which he incorporates a leitmotif of cosmic symbols.
Roger Vibal, for his part, ingeniously crafts a lamp of handmade
paper and bamboo. Demy del Rosario uses pen-and-ink on
handmade paper with deft touches of pointillism to create a field
of fertility motif.
There's also Rosimo Kigao, a sculptor who uses melted lead on
wood in his collection of miniature figures representing the men
and women of this indigenous folk.
Ben-Hur Villanueva, the
senior sculptor in the group,
and a retired Ateneo art
teacher from San Mateo,
Rizal who has opted to live in
Tam-awan, has a number of
works that extol the form of
the human anatomy (''The
Mover,'' ''The Builder,'' ''The
Crane Man,''), their figures in
bronze engaged in the act of
removing a huge boulder, or
a piece of rock from the earth. One such piece also raises
provoking questions about the man-made movement of nature's
vital elements that may result in the loss of natural habitat of
animals.
Bencab
BenCab is represented in the exhibit by two works showing a
Tinggian mother carrying her child, and a woman with a pot,
both pieces radiating the artist's unerring eye for figuration.
Over at the Shangri-La's Metropolitan Gallery, seven younger
but already accomplished artists from the Tam-awan Village
have mounted an exhibit of recent works.
Leonard Aguinaldo is represented by two paintings on
handmade paper on the subject of Cordillera folklore, which he
has previously documented in a book.
The other works are those by Mark Tandayog, Clemente Delim,
Jojo Elmeda, Roland Bay-an, Monette Gapus and Ged Alanguia,
all working in the identical theme pursued by their senior
counterparts at the SM Megamall.
Delim's acrylic painting on handmade paper tackles the Igorot
dance ritual while Bay-an's still lifes in watercolor capture the
spirit of stones and rocks in various arrangements. Ged
Alanguia shows maturity in his remarkable portraits of the
indigenous folk from the Kalinga and Ifugao groups, with
ceramic motifs to enhance the compositions.
Monette Gapus, who is the only member on the distaff side in
this exhibit, reveals a fine sensibility for still lifes on oil, valuable
artifacts of the Cordillera culture which is the thematic center of
the two exhibits.
The Tam-awan artists, with BenCab's able guidance, are
pioneering a holistic approach that integrates cultural heritage,
artistic activity and the role of nature, as they search for
meaning and identity. Their bonding has fostered balance
between nature and culture. Theirs is an art deeply rooted like a
tree and fluid like the running waters of the natural world.
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