Art that rustles: UPV Museum exhibits works of Visayan artists

By Rjay Castor

Art does not only move us, it makes us move.

Artists from the Visayas region are challenging the conventional ideas about what art can accomplish — from being gentle and ethereal, to art that unsettles the conscious mind and disturbs the unknown.

Different approaches to visual arts are displayed in the “Kasikas: The Visayas Exhibition of Bagong Biswal” at the University of the Philippines Visayas Museum of Arts and Cultural Heritage UPV MACH.

Kasikas is a Bisaya term for the light noise of the rustling leaves blown by the wind.

Kaye O’Yek, Secretary of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) Committee on Visual Arts, in the exhibit’s note said: “Kasikas is the beginning of a conversation, gaining momentum with Visayan artists’ remarkable command of material, concept, mythmaking, and spirit.”

The exhibition, a flagship project of NCCA’s Committee on Visual Arts, puts together works of more than 30 established and emerging artists from Bohol, Cebu, Iloilo, Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental, Leyte, Samar, and Siquijor.

The artists have infused their own souls into their paintings, drawings, sculptures, and ceramics, forging in proud and idiosyncratic names such as Talpak, Itum na ido nga gauwang sa ugsad (Black dog howling at the full moon), Anod, Pangayam, Wala kamo nakapuy? (Are you not tired?), Pro-Forma, Kartops, men vs oestrogen, and all other personal definitions of an imaginative mind.

The exhibit opened on April 14 and will be open for viewing until May 12 on UPV MACH Hanas – Changing Exhibition Gallery 2.