EXHIBITED WORKS
The Podium, 2nd Level
18 ADB Ave.,
Ortigas Center
Sampaloc Cave Paintings
June 24 to July 7, 2008
An elegiac wistfulness for the primeval before rigid structures that delimit and categorize habitation
that lead to the creation of cities permeate Geraldine Javier’s latest exhibit entitled Sampaloc Cave Paintings
organized by Finale Art File and opening on the 24th of June at The Podium. In patinated tones of somber blues,
greens and tinges of ochre reminiscent of mid-century grammar books, the painted scenes portend to fables of
dissolving borders between the acclimatized fantasy engendered by media and the real. Somewhat a refashioning
of Plato’s cave where it is purported that those who have stayed in the cave too long are in danger of amusing
themselves too much with mere shadows, real life passes by them in their unwitting isolation from them.
This is best exemplified in Blackbird Singing where a girl in a blue story-book pinafore gazes lethargically in
front of a glowing TV monitor, completely unaware of the brightly-hued birds pecking at a crumpled bag of chips at
her deathly grip. (George Romero is an acute observer then of the habits of urban dwellers caged-in too much by
their complacent and addictive routines of automated digestion of mostly by-products and trifling trivial matters –
TV + chips = zombie trance. The sudden pangs of hunger for another’s brain is merely suggested, mimicked from other’s actions, the mimicking multiplied becomes an unthinking mob, ready to lynch without reason, easy to kill then without their individuality, like herds of cattle, to be slaughtered without remorse.)
The exhibit title also references the curious markings of prehistoric hunting and gathering societies. Assumed to be the progenitor of painting, it is theorized that these markings usually found in the inner recesses of caves are the resulting visions of shamans in trance. How these all fit in the aims of the practice of painting echo the fundamental motives of these hunting scenes – magical realism that would summon the bounty of prey. What is afforded by the constraints of canvas are only encroached by the limits of found material for subject matter, recollected/reflected perhaps by the daily grind of one’s immediate environment. What is gleaned in the triptych City Mouse, Self Portrait (Blue Moon), Country Mouse however is the claustrophobic mingling of anterior probabilities and its sub text. Fortunately, however they threaten to encroach each, painting remains a wild playing field for their imagined battles.
Sampaloc Cave Paintings is on view until July 7. The show is at The Atrium, 2nd level of The Podium, ADB Avenue, Mandaluyong City.
