Fragments

The human face, even in its distorted configuration, is easily the most recognizable image in both visual and tactile areas of perception, and certainly one of the earliest to present itself before a newborn’s developing eyesight and sense of touch. The ensuing familiarity with this strangely animated form may well have been our introduction to the world of semiotics, and, consequentially -the subject of our first attempts at artistic representation with modeling clay or crayons on paper. With a little effort, we may find that it materializes everywhere -not just on clouds, but on stains and cracks on walls, on concrete pavements and tree barks, on rocks, shells, and rose petals, etc. 
Ginny Alcaide’s deconstruction of Portraiture: subdividing the dimensions of her subject’s head into a topography of translucent planes with severed hemispheres or dissected sections as detailed renditions of contour, shape and form (at times suggesting an almost geometric algorithm), inverted, stretched, dissolving or projecting from a vanishing point, aided by the 3-dimensional effect from the spatial depths and translucency of stretched silk fabrics, may stir up dithering episodes of metaphorical interpretations. However, on a different platform, the deconstructive process of methodical segregation into fragments -the morphology of the heads of her otherwise expressionless models may have simply evolved as a natural progression of the artist’s creative process and requires no other analogy. The works of Portraiture, after all, is as multifarious as the number of artists’ renditions whose materials and techniques are as multiple variables. It may even be argued that the deconstruction of a portrait is also in the province of portraiture. And, as art would have it, the method of deconstruction not only stresses the limitlessness of interpretations but also its impossibility, wherever and regardless of how we may find a face materializing.

-sja

Lui Medina: Ascent

For her latest solo at Artinformal, Lui Medina continues to explore the relationships between objects and paintings via the tensions of space. Creating visually sublime wall bound objects as well as geologically inspired forms she focuses on processes of transformation and what takes shape within these moments of change. Expressing the potential and contradiction of being, her works necessarily alternate between sculpture/painting or hybrid other due to the metaphysical and physical spaces they inhabit. These encounters and interrogations then become a purposeful landscape of shifting forms which both the artist and her audience must locate themselves within.

As the viewers we are encouraged to negotiate the visual illusion of Medina's forms as well as their seductive materiality. Her oval and circular works suggest the romance of celestial forms or the all consuming collapse of black holes. However they are also informed by processes of abstraction through a rhythmic application of paint and color. In addition, Medina’s visceral three dimensional works and drawing have been inspired by various geological formations and crystals that have been cast and reformed into painted objects. Referencing 'isostasy' or the gravitational equilibrium between the earth’s lithosphere and asthenosphere where the tectonic plates ‘float’ at an elevation this investigation into the inner machinations of the earth, provides an important entry point into Medina’s characteristic philosophical inquiries.

For the past few years the artist has been interested in communicating the aesthetic qualities of the sublime and the transcendent. However, although Ascent suggests the journey towards artistic enlightenment, what Medina is most interested in the different frictions realised along the way. By purposefully working within the push and pull of opposites she shares the hypnotic qualities of space and form in states of progression that attempt to undermine the fixed definitions of art. Ranging from the flatness of her drawing, through to the intense depths of paintings that stretch towards sculpture and sculptures that want to be paintings what emerges are the different energies and possibilities of creativity in flux.

Words by Eva McGovern

The exhibition will showcase the works of three of the Philippine’s most interesting and renowned ceramic artists. While currently based in different countries (Mark – Australia, Hadrian – U.S. and Pablo – Philippines), all three artists share an earthy and raw aesthetic that is prominent in Philippine ceramic art. However, the similarities end there as each artist presents a unique approach to the medium. Through Mark’s concept-based installations, Hadrian’s sculptural and functional stoneware and Pablo’s anagama-fired vessels, the exhibition will showcase the diverse contemporary ceramic art of the Philippines.