Kim Oliveros
Neil de la Cruz
Rocelie Delfin
Kim Oliveros
Neil de la Cruz
Rocelie Delfin
FOTOMOTO
Time Bubble
Fotomoto Presents
TIME BUBBLE
FotomotoPH is an organization of visionary photographers, artists, curators, and writers dedicated to promoting Philippine photography through a regular cycle of exhibitions, public programs, and special projects with art spaces throughout the archipelago. By involving a cross section of the community, the organization encourages participation, appreciation, and collectorship. Public programs have included lectures, panel discussions, workshops, and portfolio reviews.
Since its founding in 2021, FotomotoPH has held exhibits and programs at 30 different locations around the country and have featured the works of 120 artists. The inaugural theme centered on Portraits; it was an invitational project installed at various venues in Metro Manila, with a concurrent satellite show in Dumaguete. The collection then travelled to Orange Project in Bacolod and to Ariniego Gallery at Silliman University. FotomotoPH published a photo book on the Portraits collection.
In 2022, the theme expanded to the notion of Home. The Home collection was a juried selection gathered through an open call that reached out nationwide and to the diaspora. It also featured the photographic series of 5 invited artists. The complete body of work was first exhibited at Parola: the UP Fine Arts Gallery. In 2023, it traveled to the BenCab Museum in Baguio and to galleries within the Bacolod Art District. Selections from both Portraits and Home were also exhibited at Qube Gallery in Cebu. FotomotoPH will soon be announcing its forthcoming open call theme.
Continuing to herald the direction of contemporary Philippine photography within the mainstream art market, FotomotoPH presents Time Bubble, a showcase of various stories and photographic media by 22 artists. The exhibit includes a range of practice from photojournalism to fine art photography and mixed media. As part of the Fotomoto ethos, works of veteran practitioners are installed alongside experimental new work. Satellite exhibits such as this, independent from the open call themes, examine the vital role of photography in the evolution of architecture, journalism, painting, sculpture, video and its relation to archives, conservation, and publication.
VICTORIA MONTINOLA
Brighter Days
Brighter Days
“landscape is the work of the mind. Its scenery is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock.”
- Simon Schama
It is no coincidence that we have named the two main orientations of our viewpoint as “portrait” for vertical images and “landscape” for horizontal ones. Both have been ubiquitous subject matters depicted in certain ways since we had a way to conjure an image. The first, often captures a sense of our humanity enabling us to easily portray a natural standing position while the latter tries to encapsulate our natural world, its vastness and extending horizons.
In Brighter Days, Victoria Montinola attempts to combine both elements by leaning towards the naturality of the landscape while excavating her own memory of the places she has seen and been to. The simplicity and mundaneness of a beautiful vista were not taken for granted, when they could have easily been digitized and captured with a snapshot of a camera, she burrows into those moments and transfers them into her canvases. Just like friends and lovers consumed with their bonds who etch and carve their initials on a tree, on a wood or on any physical object where they have been, she commemorates and leaves a hallmark on her mental vistas with her painted markings over her landscapes.
Her chosen images hold more meaning as they were not mere locations in a foreign or local land but her way of concretizing her longingness to be there, an active participation of seeing and experiencing the moment - her way of enfolding her sense of identity and belongingness to her memory. It exposes something beneath the surfaces and terrains as we are viewing not a mere replica of the actual thing but her view of the wonderment of the intangible, the cultural experience and the lasting impression of it that has been carved in her totality as a person.
BABYLYN GEROCHE FAJILAGUTAN
small ones are spreading
Most of the time, Babylyn sews thread on paper because it’s a direct act of interaction with the material. Poking a hole with the needle, then back and forth it goes through the paper. There is tension because the paper is vulnerable. One wrong pull, the paper rips. When she sees the needle poke the paper, the interaction between the images and words are there.
In “Small Ones are Spreading”, Babylyn made use of paper and thread. She also painted her canvases and papers. Through the process of collage, her artworks are an exploration of the materialism of paper and thread. Her works are about unraveling the self.
Babylyn described her works as almost monochromatic. One work was limited to one to two colors, pink and white. Her paintings are composed with organic shapes and images of her face, clocks, clouds, photocopies of her own journal, and random papers she kept for years in her room. She just played with them. Babylyn doesn’t fill up her works because she is conscious of negative spaces. To her, space is important, it’s like a breather. In her work, she doesn’t want to just stick the whole paper. She “spot glues” so that the surface is elevated above the canvas and slightly 3D. She starts her process with the biggest elements and shapes as the focal point. Babylyn prefers tearing the paper to make the shape, rather than cutting them. It’s so people can see the paper’s characteristics.
Babylyn didn’t force herself to seek a stable concept for her works. The act of creating helped her figure out things in her mind that are often messy. Her thoughts became a map. She just trusts the process of creating and lets the works be.
