Fruits of the Womb: A Women’s Month exhibit at Thrive Art

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By John Anthony S. Estolloso

WHEN ASKED to define woman, French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir snidely wrote that she is a womb. Even in the introduction of her controversial feminist treatise ‘Le Deuxième Sexe’, she did not mince words about the elevation – and relegation – of women as maternal entities; our parlance for the uterus oozes with motherly nuances: taguánkan – that which keeps the offspring. But that was the paradox of de Beauvoir’s worldview: a woman is so much more than a womb, let alone an entity in the process of becoming.

Now, Thrive Art Gallery boldly takes up the statement with a collection of artworks attempting to describe, if not to encapsulate, what constitutes womanhood.

Aptly entitled ‘In the Womb of the Earth’ – a nominal reference to a short story penned by Ilongga writer Alice Tan-Gonzales – the new exhibit features the artworks of sixteen local artists, each reflective of the sundry characteristics affiliated with the woman: life-bearing, nurturing, motherly, far-seeing, soulful, passionate, mercurial, vengeful, benevolent, long-suffering.

One glance at Yanni Ysabel’s subject for ‘Orchids and Opulence’, a distorted female figure denuded and replete with multiple breasts set on a flaming pink background dotted with fried eggs, underlines the elevated and relegated stance on maternity – the same way that the juxtapositions of anatomical segments with horticultural images in Deya Java’s ‘where the heart is’ suggest visual puns on the fertility of women as maternal archetype.

The portraits in the exhibit reveal much of the female psyche. For instance, Kristoffer Brasileño’s pencil sketches of female figures in various poses, habiliments, and accoutrements of war and carnage evoke the virility usually distanced or deprived from male representations of femininity. Conversely, Bianca Lava’s acrylic portraits embellished with floral appendages seem to present a delicate albeit forceful interpretation of female wisdom and wit in bloom, recalling what de Beauvoir sharply observes about how women’s vulnerabilities may prove to be their greatest strengths.

Daniela Faith Señorin’s psychedelic warping of faces through weaves and waves of colors both deface and affirm identities, recalling the diverse shades that personalize women. At the far nook of the gallery, Janine Tolores’ ‘Not a great white shark’ fills the canvas with an anguished and asphyxiated self-portrait submerged in a claustrophobic glass tank of water. The aquarium reveals yet also limits, evocative of male-imposed glass ceilings and walls which persist in restricting women: unseen yet present, unperceived yet deeply felt.

In the exhibit, abstraction and installation further elevate and deepen feminine representation. Gelo Zarsuelo’s acrylics of cloth-like odds and ends inundated with floral designs are reminiscent of familiar fabrics which constitute our recognition of hearth and home. Van Eljon Bagañgan’s framed needlework and Marvin Monfort’s quilt-montage of silk, thread, garter, satin, and beads, among others, reiterate the seemingly obligatory adornment of apparel to the female form. Vin Deza’s surrealist pastoral, Katelyn Miñoso’s impressionist landscape, and Roland Llarena’s demure interiors are suggestive of the reveries of the female mind – and who can escape the mercurial invitation of the television screen and cyanotype prints constituting the assemblage of Roselle Perez’s ‘I hope this finds you well’? The range of aesthetic themes establishing femininity seem profoundly ubiquitous, as if to give credence to de Beauvoir’s punning observation that the soul (psyche) of Man is always a woman.

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About this time last year in the same art gallery, in an exhibit vernissage of the same theme, truly yours had the audacity to ask a group of women artists what constitutes feminist art. I received cold silence and piercing glances as the initial response – but it did spark discourse about femininity in art. At the end of the lively conversations which followed were still the quite nebulous definitions and explanations of how women are represented by and through art.

But one common theme surfaced above the conversations: femininity in art will always be a contested aesthetic space, one where artistic expression both highlights oppression and celebrates empowerment. All in all, beneath the vibrant colors, the sinuous lines and voluptuous curves of female figures, and the recurrent archetypes and metaphors of mother, damsel, wife, and dowager is a paraphrase of de Beauvoir’s aphorism: womanhood is an incessant act of becoming, more so in the artworld.

(The writer is the subject area coordinator for Social Studies in one of the private schools in the city. Photos of the artworks are from the artists.)