The wholeness of things: A new exhibit at Thrive Art

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By John Anthony S. Estolloso

Such was the introductory query of the exhibit notes: What constitutes the ‘wholeness of an image’? Thrive Art Gallery’s ‘Kabug-usan sang Laragway’ resurfaces the Gestalt in art, probing into visual figurations and spaces as well as metaphors that fill in the blanks of our imaginations. When confronted with fragments or distortions, how does the human eye bridge the liminalities of the perceived?

Last May 16 – amid simultaneous art events in the city celebrating National Heritage Month – opened this visual exploration to the public. Featuring the works of Diane Almuenda, La Ana, Margaux Blas, Kristoffer Brasileño, Jonathan Bunker, Mann Cayona, Noel Elicana, Jeanroll Ejar, Allain Hablo, Ronn Golingay, Ronnie Granja, JB Manejero, Ruperto Quitag, Kenna Jean, Jonarde Villarde, and Yanni Ysabel, the exhibit proposes an examination of what goes into the creation of art – the formal, the sentimental, the experiential.

The title itself provokes discussion. Kabúg-osan denotes wholeness, coherence, or unity of things or ideas; it is an apt modifier if one is to talk about aesthetic coherence, of how elements contribute to the over-all making of an artwork. Interestingly, the title’s translation uses ‘anatomy’, something which refers more to parts constituting a specified body. Understood as corpus, it could also refer to a canon or catalog of individual pieces, varied in form or function yet building up an operational Gestalt. As such, in the exhibit, wholeness does not merely constitute visual or thematic unity; it also connotes corporeality and materiality.

For Gestalt itself finds its roots on visual representations, more so in art and design. Theoretically, it is the description of structural features, the whole-qualities of configurations in which the character and function of any part is determined by the total situation (Arnheim, 1943). The theory lends itself to aestheticism, in our inclination to ‘constellate’ or group together proximate images or ideas; in a sense, a ‘psychology of the form’ (Behrens, 1998).

Take Mann Cayona’s ‘Big Fish’. Two images are literally interwoven in the visual space: a piscine figure seemingly gasping for air is juxtaposed on a barong-clad human figure while a secondary portrait is intermeshed with it, its upturned head bizarrely visible at the frame’s right foreground. A closer scrutiny of the work reveals curious details. A cigar is clenched between the anthropomorph’s digits, its barong is richly embroidered with gold filigree, the warm colors inundating throughout. In contrast, the inverted portrait is steeped in cooler cobalts and ceruleans. Left to the viewer’s gaze, we are invited to ‘make sense’ of the intermeshing and to find coherence in each artwork and in the combination of the two. Delving further, one is compelled to read and contemplate between the metaphors and the portraits: what exactly is the ‘big fish’ in the artwork?

This summation of parts to exceed the whole finds further elaboration in the successive variations of anatomical imagery in the display. Kristoffer Brasileño’s ‘Dagsa’ portrays the classic portrait: a Filipina, recognizable by her bronzed features and the bright patterns of her habiliments, balances a plate of fish and vegetables on her head, a blazing sky and sea further emphasizing her profile. Here is the whole of the persona, complemented by the materiality of her environs.

We move to another part of the gallery where we are confronted with deconstruction: Yanni Ysabel’s vignettes of the female form in various stages of deshabille. ‘Trade-in of the Loving Machine’ is comprised of six separate frames, each one focusing on a particular act of undress. Fleeting motions are implied in the fleeting glimpses of skin, cloth, and underwear – only these, and yet one arrives to a coherent understanding of a narrative of intimate acts. As if to further break down the corporeality of parts, one encounters Noel Elicana’s ‘Dugo at Ugat’, where the visceral aspects of human anatomy are interspersed in rootlike figurations, further probing into the exhibit’s examination of part-whole relationships while underlining ideas of identity and affiliation.

This breaking down of wholes and the reconstructions of ideas through figments and fragments of imagery recur throughout the gallery. These are seen in Allain Hablo’s geometric minimalisms of lines and colors, and the hodgepodge assemblage of Margaux Blas. One senses these in Jeanroll Ejar’s sculpted latticework and in Diane Almuenda’s sketchbook, brimming with eclectic vibrance. We ponder them in Jonarde Villarde’s contorted figure and in JB Manejero and Jonathan Bunker’s dream-like arrangements.

Drop by the gallery one of these days and peruse the art on display. Look for what holds together the liminalities and fill in the blanks between the distorted and the absent, the shattered and the removed, the gaps and the spaces.

[The writer is a history and humanities teacher in one of the private schools of the city. The photos are from the artists and the gallery’s FB page.]