Artists Edgar San Diego, Jane Ebarle, and Monie Domer, in their first-ever group show titled “Kagayakan,” try to evoke emotions from the observer by focusing on dresses sans their wearers as subject. The show, which will run from April 5 to 24 at S Maison’s Art Anton, will also be an interesting study in contrast, as the three featured artists have totally different styles and sources of inspiration.
By Alex Y. Vergara
As far as their respective styles as artists go, they couldn’t have been more different from one another. While one thrives in abstractionism, the other two are more at home doing their respective versions of figurative representations of the real world. One thing that binds them though, apart from their friendship, is their fascination with Filipiniana dresses, which they’ve chosen as the overall theme of their first-ever group show.
Dubbed as “Kagayakan,” the Filipino term for decoration or ornamentation, the upcoming art show from April 5 to 24 at the Art Anton (ground floor of the S Maison in Pasay City), will celebrate the works of fashion designer-slash-artist Edgar San Diego, veteran marketing practitioner and artist Jane Ebarle, and full-time artist, environmentalist, and animal rescuer Monie Domer.
Both Edgar and Jane, who majored in Advertising, are contemporaries and products of the University of Santo Tomas College of Fine Arts. Monie, the youngest of the three, also studied Fine Arts major in Advertising Design at the College of the Holy Spirit.
For their chosen mediums, both Edgar and Jane will use acrylic, while Monie is more at home with watercolor. Before working on their respective pieces, all three have agreed on one overarching feature: since they want the focus to be on the dresses, their canvasses would be devoid of human figures, be it the face, hands, feet, legs, or even the torso. With this in mind, they have allowed their creativity to run wild by painting dresses on canvas culled mostly from their imagination.
Edgar, for instance, due to his background as a seasoned fashion designer, is drawing inspiration from fashion that was in vogue during certain decades, including the turn of the last century, the 1930s, the 1950s, and the 1970s, and melding them, in his signature whimsical style, with fruits and vegetables like corn, watermelon, bananas, custard apple and mango to produce colorful dresses set in the countryside that are simultaneously playful and teeming with joie de vivre.
“I haven’t totally detached myself from fashion, but my time is now divided between my dresses and my paintings,” says Edgar. “Just like in my past exhibits, I’ve retained my artworks’ Filipino flavor by adding native plants and animals. One of my dreams is to draw the artwork of a children’s book.”
Monie, taking full advantage of her mastery over a pointillist-type of technique, highlights the shapes and colors of nature such as flowers and leaves that transition into visible silhouettes of dresses and shirts. In lieu of dots, she uses a mad scramble of letters to form images. What is already a painstaking process becomes even more so because of her chosen medium, which is watercolor.
“I’ve already incorporated nature with dresses and faces before,” she says. “But with the absence this time of faces, it became more challenging for me. How can I evoke emotions from people with just the dress, flowers, and leaves on canvas?”
She tried to compensate for the missing faces by using various color combinations, shapes, and sizes. Will they resonate as effectively with the observer? That’s something Monie would have to find out on the exhibit’s opening night.
Finally, Jane, a big fan of Austrian painter Gustav Klimt, decided to totally do away with the face and human figure even before taking part in this group show.
The decision was perhaps simply in keeping with her preference for doing abstract art. Although her dresses are culled purely from her imagination and are far from abstract sketches, the beauty in them can be seen in their linear quality and, much like the delicate piña fabric, gossamer- and web-like textures that translate well on canvas.
On the heels of her well-received solo show at the Galerie Joaquin, Jane thought of inviting Edgar and Monie to do a group show with her as a follow-up. She purposely chose the two because they all have different styles, which would make for an interesting study in contrast. The move would also invariably appeal to a wider market of art collectors.
“I first started as an abstract artist who held a day job as a marketing professional,” she shares. “I transitioned into doing faces and figures, but I was never comfortable or happy doing them, so I eventually decided to remove them altogether. And these are the results.”
“Kagayakan,” featuring the works of artists Jane Ebarle, Monie Domer, and Edgar San Diego, will run from April 5 to 24 at the Art Anton, G/F S Maison at Conrad, Marina Way, MOA Complex, Pasay City. There will be an artist reception on Friday, April 5, 5 p.m.
