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The Cordillera strikes back
Source: Inquirer
Author: Gino Dormiendo
Date: 1999-11-01
 
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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