In ImaheNacion, Francis Nacion produces his first-ever collection of abstract artworks that merge high art with craft, feminine and masculine, folk and city, maximalist and minimalist, the personal and the universal. His main source of inspiration, the clothes his mother used to sew for him, comes from a personal place and teems with patterns and colors as if seen through the eyes of a child.
Father’s Day is a mere two Sundays away, but artist Francis Nacion, who’s currently holding his 13th solo exhibit, could still very well be celebrating Mother’s Day, as he draws yet again inspiration from memories of his mother to produce his first-ever collection of striking abstract art.
In ImaheNACION, Francis gives us glimpses of how close he is with his mother, as he fondly shares with friends how she used to sew his clothes, including his school uniform. This, in turn, piqued young Francis’ curiosity, leading him to play with and group together loose textiles from his mother’s work. Little did he know that he would one day mine these fond memories into vivid works of art.
Mountain Breeze, 20 X20 inches, oil and textile on canvas
Expect to see Francis playing with textile, lines and shapes in this exhibit. Taking inspiration from Paul Klee, a German artist who is known for his quilts of color and simple stick figures, Francis has come up with an artistic style that’s all his own.
His works appear as dreamlike images in which fiction and reality meet, where well-known tropes merge, meanings shift, and past and present fuse. Time and memory always play a key role in his masterpieces. By questioning the concept of movement, he considers making art a craft, which is executed using clear formal rules and always alluding to social reality.
Vivid and bold in terms of execution, ImaheNACION features works that will surely bring life and color to any room. This may be Francis’s first abstract exhibition, but the audience will be delighted to see that he has maintained his signature style of using vibrant colors, showing the importance of families, and paying homage to Filipino values and traditions.
According to Ricky Francisco, art curator/director of Fundacion Sanso and also an abstract artist, “Nacion’s abstraction, which is based on his personal recollection of his mother’s favorite hobby of sewing, is unique in the Philippine art scene in that it honors his mother and the craft which is perceived as a feminine, domestic activity.
“He does this while integrating his own bricolage of artistic influences like Basquiat, maximalism and urbanism. In so doing, Nacion merges high art with craft, feminine and masculine, folk and city, maximalist and minimalist, the personal and the universal, in an aesthetic language that is easy to comprehend and Filipino in its predilection for detail, color and pattern.”
Meanwhile Cid Reyes, writer/ publisher of Art & Lifestyle magazine, adds, “Renowned for his stylized figurative forms of women distinguished by the trademark half-rendered visage, Francis Nacion, in his 13th solo show, journeys into the realm of abstraction. The impetus for this latest visual adventure is his very concrete affection and love for the woman who gave life to him- his own mother. The artist remembers her as a typical Filipino mother who cared for her family, attending to their daily meals and the clothes they wore, sewing the future artist’s school uniform.
“ImaheNACION is a rousing celebration of filial affection manifested in the pulsing energy of myriad pieces of fabrics and textiles, radiant with compulsive, symphonic colors and an array of animated, spirited patterns. With these works, Francis Nacion vivifies the art of collage, elevating it to the level of the emotive, the more affective since they were impelled by motives that transcend the merely decorative and ornamental.”
ImaheNACION will run until June 12 at Art Lounge Manila – Molito Lifestyle Center, Ayala Alabang. For more information, visit the Art Lounge Manila website www.artloungemanila.com. You may also check their social media pages FB: @artloungemanila IG: @artloungemanila for more details.
