BY CHRYSEE G. SAMILLANO
The first solo exhibit of Julia “Amai” Lopue, titled “Fleeting Moments”, is ongoing at the Art Association of Bacolod-Negros Gallery+Cafe at the Art District in Brgy. Mandalagan, Bacolod City until June 13.
The show opened on May 13 and features about 64 works of the artist in different media – coffee painting, watercolor, pen and ink, and pastel.
Guests of honor at the opening were visual artist Charlie Co and Ria Montelibano.
Lopue said proceeds of the show will benefit young artists for their art supply.
She is very happy to share God’s gift and blessing to her through her talent, as well as for the support of her family and all the artists, who encouraged her to push through with the exhibit, she said during the opening program.
Co said he believes that the most important thing is to be able to express oneself in art, especially during this pandemic. And a first one-man show is really very important in the sense that an artist expresses his or her soul by showing to the viewer how he or she sees and feels.
Meanwhile, local visual artists under the Raw Art Bacolod established an art installation project out of discarded recycled materials in front of the Boys Scout of the Philippines compound along 3rd-Lacson Streets recently.
Conceptual artist Perry Argel considered art installation functional and decorative.
Argel said that, in his case, he uses recycled objects as his personal journal. So instead of writing down his experiences in his travels, he collects everything he encounters in space, especially things that attract him, connect them using a string, and start to develop them into art pieces that tell a story.
By the time he shares them to the public, they become a conversational piece to help him explain the object or his concept in detail. It’s like a photograph but in sculpture form, he said.
Argel said he preserves discarded things at home and uses them as raw materials, citing for example plastic bottles that he can use in creating blocks.
He recalled using rattan, bamboo, driftwood and other indigenous materials when he started creating art pieces. When he stayed in Boracay, he started using drifted materials like plastic, among others, he said. “We are the ones responsible for our personal waste. We should therefore learn to re-use or re-purpose recycled materials as our contribution to the protection and preservation of the environment,” Argel added.*