Kiko Escora and Maya Muñoz have much in common despite their stylistically diverging practices.  They are both- in a sense- on the verge of being comfortably “autumnal”; possessed of a certain maturity that is less prone to overt “experimental phases”. Their subjects’ gestures are fulfilled and the artists’ sense of identification with them distinct and charged. However, what becomes of their sitters if Escora and Muñoz make them casualties to their process in order to assert a painterly honesty? 

Short Frictions is precisely this. Like intervisible lines or the point of mutually visible lines of one from the other, Escora and Muñoz come together this one time in an abrupt shift of gear in imagery and format to produce a peculiar blend of remoteness and intimacy. While the artists still situate portraits in these new works, these representations become undone and almost atmospheric. Painterly devices such as the grid, the aleatory qualities of the medium and other physical frictions govern the making of Short Frictions. The heavy and defined brushstroke is no longer an index of earnestness for Escora and Muñoz. Instead, they turn to the pursuit of chance manipulated through practice.

Short Frictions thus poses questions about what painters have made of portraiture after so many portraits. It makes us look at the practice of painting, from the elemental, subconscious gestures of painters, through to the site of subjective origin that leads to narrative and, emotional charge.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Kiko Escora studied Fine Arts in the University of the Philippines, Diliman. He was bestowed the 13 Artist Award from the Cultural Center of the Philippines and was shortlisted in the 2004 Ateneo Art Awards. Escora has been exhibiting since 1996 in Manila, Singapore and Jakarta. His works have been featured across Europe, China and the US. Recent solo shows include Misfit (2008) in Ark Gallerie, Jakarta, Mapping Asia (2009) in the China International Gallery Exposition and Mono (2009) in Utterly Art, Singapore.

Maya Muñoz (b. 1972) trained at San Jose State University in California. She has been an active force in both the local and international art scene since 2000. She received the Ateneo Art Awards in 2006. Her works have been displayed in the US, China, Singapore, UAE and the Philippines for both solo and group exhibitions. Munoz’s most recent solo exhibition entitled The Romanticist was displayed at the Drawing Room in Makati City, Philippines. She is opening another exhibition in Barcelona this October 2011.

CONVERSATIONS: POPO SAN PASCUAL AND ROCELI VALENCIA

October 15- November 6, 2011

Upstairs Gallery

Conversation and exchange build the foundations of lasting friendship. Years of personal engagement often create profound relationships of enjoyment, trust and respect. When the personal is merged with the professional, these connections can sow the seeds for ideas and projects in new and unexpected ways. Conversations, by artists Popo San Pascual and Roceli Valencia, aims to reveal this very process based upon their seventeen years of friendship. Throughout this time they have shared long talks that span the grand themes of love, life, family, and philosophy to the everyday aspects of their shared love of gardening and Tagatay, where they both live. As visual practitioners, this has, inevitably, also included long discussions on the nature of their creative practices and the state of art itself.

Seizing the opportunity to visualise their relationship, they present a selection of collaborative and individual works. Although San Pascual has been consistently painting, whilst Valencia has been on hiatus from her practice for many years until quite recently, the former has taken an interest in absorbing and responding to the work of his more senior peer and mentor. For their collaboration Valencia presents San Pascual with incomplete works for him to intervene and contribute to her aesthetic; working in secrecy, the completed version is only unveiled to her on opening night. Concurrently, they both contribute individual works illustrating how their styles converge and diverge creatively. Sharing an intuitive and emotive approach to practice, each plays with medium, colour and space to create lyrical figurative and abstract images in this unusual stream of shared consciousness.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Popo San Pascual (b. 1964) graduated with an Art Studies degree from the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City. He has been actively participating in several group exhibition including, Five at the SM Art Center, SM Megamall in 2003, Paintings by Numbers at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 1995 and 4 Generations at Finale Art File in 1991. Since the mid 80's, Popo has produced almost yearly solo shows at the Finale Art Gallery in SM Megamall, Finale Art File in Makati, Vargas Museum, Hotel Intercon and Penguin Gallery in Malate. His most recent solo exhibition was Dime che so, ma non me dir chi gero at Finale Art File in 2007. In 1988, he was presented with CCP's Thirteen Artists Award.

Roceli Valencia received her Bachelor’s degree in Humanities from St. Theresa’s College.  She has had numerous group and solo exhibitions at various galleries and festivals in Manila, Hong Kong and Singapore. Her works are part of several collections, including that of the Ateneo Art Gallery, the Central Bank of the Philippines, the Commercial Bank of the Philippines, the Children’s International Summer Village Philippines Association, Teodoro F. Valencia Foundation, the Philippine Commercial and Industrial Bank and that of Antonio’s in Tagaytay.

Roceli is also a columnist of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and the director of the Teodoro F. Valencia Foundation.

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