"CHROMATICized"
Cebu’s Qube Gallery opened 2024 with a show that was steeped in the literal and metaphoric nuances of colors – a show which ambivalently played up Cebu’s affinity with the festivities of January without having to overtly dress it in the regalia of the Sinulog.
Titled “CHROMATICized” and staged at the gallery’s space at The Crossroads in Banilad from January 13 to 27, the exhibit was top-billed by pieces made by Paul Arenas, Bong Rafael, Pierre Famador, Sigwada Knicolai and Shielo May Duterte – five creative daubers who have made the use of vibrant shades and hues an integral component of their creative identity.
Equal parts conceptual and practical, the show hinged its curatorial score in the transformative power of colors by engaging the senses and stirring the imaginations of its viewers. With each work primed to tell a story, the show collectively celebrated the boundless creativity that can be drawn when an artist embraces the world’s full spectrum of colors.
Shorn of its color-inclined bearings, the exhibit doubled as a primer on the novel creative themes and styles that’ve recently captivated the fancies of local artists and art lovers.
This was discernable in the pop-art-cum-neo-expressionist pieces of Knicolai, the figurative renderings of Rafael, the mannerist motif of Famador, the expressionist bearings of Arenas and the realist leanings of Duterte, who each worked up their own styles to masterfully mold the show as one.
In bringing together artworks that fall in different tiers in visual arts ever-growing taxonomy of styles, the exhibit doubled as a commentary on just how diverse the creative arts sphere has been, is and will be.
This aspect to “CHROMATICized” did well in setting it as Qube’s “abre gana” exhibit for 2024, one which nodded to the many creative styles and themes that the gallery has presented in the past while alluding to featuring more styles and concepts in the days to come.
In a way, the exhibit’s staging in January doubled as the gallery’s love letter to the Cebuano arts community; telling it to continue to craft and create and be firm in the view that there is ultimately no such thing as art, only artists.