Agenda

Abstracsion 2

Bluewater Gallery, Maribago Bluewater Beach Resort, Mactan, Cebu

Academic training has exposed Dennis ‘Sio’ Montera, initially, in creating realist-inspired nature visual artworks before he finally found his own illustrative language.

On his fifth-year as an artist, he came back to Cebu City armed with a Masters degree in painting earned from University of the Philippines. Sio mounted two important solo exhibitions on abstract art at the Art Center of SM City Cebu and Bluewater Gallery of Maribago Bluewater Beach Resort. These shows received accolade from critics and collectors, alike, and brought to the community a fresh take on serious visual art. That two special occasions baptized Sio as one of the few visual artists who have taken the road less travelled – the exploration of the non-objective realm in mainstream art.

Sio, as his intimates call him, takes inspiration from the likes of Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, Jean Dubuffet, Cy Twombly, Jean Michel Basquiat and Antoni Tapies. He admits that Philippine artists like Nestor Vinluan, Lao Lianben, and Jose Joya joins the list of artists that stirred him to undertake a personal experiment materials, tools and effects.

Sio Montera began to mix industrial materials with the conventional artist’s paints. After hundreds of hours of test and trials he succeeded in integrating diverse resources into a convincing overall composition. His canvasses are condensed into massive, encrusted color-filled paintings of either gestural lines or scratched surfaces. The lines created in his gestural works often resemble coagulated ink blots that glide from one corner to the other with total abandon and freedom. The scratched/scraped picture plane is the most recent reinvention of the artist’s style and the indentations on the surface of the paintings function like individual graffiti, the artist set of personal coded references inscribed on the work’s ground like hardened symbols or signs.

In this latest exhibition dubbed “AbstracSIOn II” which opens to the public on August 14, the artist metaphorically combines artistic production with immediate experiences of his human existence. Each of the works creates an overall effect that is based from the language of the artist’s soul and is considered by him as emblems and symbolic indications of his presence in this short life. These new installment of Sio Montera’s work has also taken distance from the linear logic of adults to arrive at the impulsive logic of children. The created visual field reassures flatness that is both direct and embracing typical of the spontaneity inherent in the spur-of-the-moment, scribble drawings. They represent for him an extraordinary mirror for multiplying or shattering imagery to reinvent or exorcize life.

Bluewater Gallery will feature Dennis “Sio” Montera’s exhibit from August 14 to September 30, 2009. For exhibit viewing appointment, get in touch with Gallery Coordinator Ruben B. Licera, Jr. at (63 32) 492 0100 local 512 or email .

Aftermath

Renaissance Gallery, Artwalk, 4th Level, SM Megamall Bldg. A

Sio Montera unveils his latest collection of abstract expressionist inspired artworks at the Renaissance Gallery, SM Megamall, Mandaluyong City, Philippines. This is the artist's second solo exposition for the year and his tenth overall. The exhibit will run from October 2-11, 2009. For information on the works in the gallery, please call 632-6373101 or email .

Art Diocese (Why Art Thou)

Art Center, SM City Cebu, Philippines

We say amen to affirm our faithfulness. The creative process is a prayer that intellectually stimulates the hunger to create art. The true artist is a spiritual; art to him is imbued with spirituality. A real artist fights for what he believes in and is willing to die for his beliefs like the crusader of the past. And artist fights because he is committed and die because he is dedicated. As the last major group exhibition for the year 2007, Tuslob-Buwa Ltd. will present another unprecedented leap where art has not gone before. The art group composed of namely Evan Bejec, Sio Montera, Jojo Sagayno, and Ritchie Quijano, are all in search of new concepts to push their art-making to new and higher levels of awareness. ART DIOCESE subtitled “Why art thou!” explores the realm of the sacred. The exhibit is not intended to make pun to the authority of the archdiocese. It however tries to reinforce faith by strengthening the visual form of articles and facts relevant to religion. The concept-themed show will be tackling the issue of continuity of the visual arts of the church and faith in the face of modernism and contemporary art.

We the artists believes the church as an institution of faith will see a change of form and design as it enters a new era. The changes that are currently happening have challenged the artists to contribute new and dynamic ideas using elements of church and articles of faith to the body of knowledge that is visual arts history. ART DIOCESE is intended to be a courageous breach to broaden the limits of the artistic license and as a revolutionary attempt to stage a revisionist show that re-imagines and re-engineers the exoticism of faith thru visual art forms. Religious in tone and nature Tuslob-Buwa artists made incursions into church state, history and religious culture then endorses a contemporary form to religious imagery by formulating non-literal and pictorial representations. Revisioning to a point where the artists investigated its old traditions to come up with conceptual forms attuned to the post-modern times. The investigations led to research on the divine and inquiries on how the church have transformed over the centuries and how it can transform in the centuries to come by looking ahead in a prophetic and visionary way. The exhibit is as well intended to preempt the evolution to see what is there to come from its old-world appearance into a church of the new age all in the name of art. These are varied propositions of how the church and faith can be viewed and a peek into its transformation. The artists as instruments who are endowed with that godly gift of creativity, intellect, and potent power takes the role as artificers of the Supreme Being and in many ways faces their ultimate experience as men in understanding and seeing God or its representatives, representations, and symbolisms.

As a concept show the artists are one in utilizing the modern cultural trend of adaptive reuse of materials. By selecting those that is familiar with indigenous culture, native and endemic to the artist’s direct environment. Much of these materials that are used are consistent to the methods of the old-world construction practice. The art works are in the format of paintings, installations, and sculptures. Adaptive reuse in art refers to the reprocessing of known materials into a creative and indigenous product. It is a kind of finding new use to an old piece to renew and extend the life of the material. Here we prolong the materials usage and life into art works. Conversion is central to the art making process. Though more than just extending the shelf-life and use of a particular material, the artists have gifted it with immortality, aesthetics, and as objects of value and cultural significance. A selected material undergoes creative conversion in the hands of the artists. The variety of materials that is included in this exposition all show the transformation from raw to finish product. There is a collective/collaborative work that makes use of fibrous and organic rattan skin and abaca that is wall-mounted to stimulate pillars and native religious structures and figures. Individual works are the latest and most recent collections of each artist’s incursion into the divine nature and will. ART DIOCESE is an adoration of faith and a revelation the artist have reveled and most importantly an epiphany that made spirituality a part of work attitude and intellectual process. Man creates as well because he is crated in his creator’s image. Such is the gospel according to Tuslob-Buwa.

A3: The Art of Three

Bluewaater Gallery, Maribago Bluewater Beach Resort, Mactan, Cebu

The Art of Three (A3) is a visual convergence that calls for unity in the face of diversity. Years ago of trio of participating painters first crossed paths while finishing their Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City. Soon after completion of their studies they have move on to practice and establish their art in their respective home fronts. Now they are crossing paths again in the arena of an art gallery. This art exhibition seeks to solidify the individual’s commonalities and delineate differences. And it answers the qualifier of young art and contemporary. Having come from different regions of the country, the triad of Arthur dela Cruz, Sio Montera and Aman Santos III intends the show to be representative in nature and character.
Dela Cruz hails from Davao hence we’ll be seeing the vignettes and splendor of his hometown. The Visayas is represented by Montera whose turf is Cebu while bringing his art from Manila is Santos. Being trained by common professors in Graduate school we find their difference thru their work and leanings. Dela Cruz’s works are incorporations of things his place is known and famous for. Montera on the other hand, let’s go of what the eyes can normally see and comprehend by doing pure abstraction. Santos’ art is the urban challenge of making way through nameless crowds where faces and identities have become generic and seemingly featureless. The show is a small microcosm of the nation’s entirety composed of representations from the three main geographic regions of the archipelago. The artists who come from the three major art centers of Cebu, Davao, and Manila assembles to provide a peek of their art’s directions and a glimpse of art from their respective regions that proves an ongoing melting pot, a healthy condition that disdains homogeneity resulting to art that is forever vibrant.

Free Form

Art Center, SM City Cebu, Philippines

Alas Cuatro

Bluewater Gallery, Maribago Bluewater Beach Resort

“ALAS CUATRO @ Bluewater Gallery”


“Alas Cuatro” is an art exhibition by “Tuslob-Buwa”, an art group composed of four contemporary visual artists in Cebu namely Jojo Sagayno, Evan Bejec, Sio Montera, and Ritchie Quijano. The show highlights the four individual directions each have taken hence the title “Alas Cuatro”.

The exhibit takes significance because the group’s composition and the number signify solidity in structure. In a deck of cards, there can be only four aces and nothing more therefore “Tuslob-Buwa” as a group is complete.

The four are in the prime of their artistic professions. Jojo Sagayno is a progressive mixed-media conceptual artist and currently a member of the faculty of the College of Architecture and Fine Arts at the University of San Carlos in the Philippines. Evan Bejec was educated in the Fine Arts and is both a dedicated painter and prolific wood sculptor. He also teaches Basic Drawing at SM City Cebu’s Summer Art School annually. Sio Montera is an inexhaustible abstract expressionist painter and has mounted numerous solo shows to his credit. He completed his MFA at UP Diliman and is presently an Assistant Professor in the Fine Arts program of the University of the Philippines Cebu College. Lastly, Ritchie Quijano pursues the craft of both painting and sculpture. Extremely passionate in the field of art, Ritchie currently writes for Sun Star Daily covering the arts and culture scene of Cebu City.

The quadro of four emerging artists are set to unveil their most recent works at the Bluewater Gallery of Maribago Bluewater Beach Resort form January 19, 2006 to February 18, 2006.

The Bluewater Gallery is located in Maribago Bluewater Beach Resort in Mactan Island, Cebu, Philippines and is open from 10AM to 6PM on weekdays and from 10AM to 8PM on weekends. Non-resort guests are requested to call Ms. Juliet Amazona at 492-1808 or 232-5411 and arrange for an exhibit viewing appointment. For inquiries, you can call the above numbers or email the gallery at .

abstracSIOn

Bluewater Gallery, Maribago Bluewater Beach Resort, Mactan Island, Cebu, Philippines

Abstrac|SIO|n at Bluewater Gallery

The Bluewater Gallery will present the exhibition Abstrac|SIO|n, artworks by leading Cebuano abstractionist painter Dennis ‘Sio’ Montera from October 20 through November 17.
Sio Montera continues to break new ground with this new collection of works employing thickly dissolved and overlapped layers of acrylic, oil, and asphalt that alternate between bright and muted tones. The distillations of color, texture, and form in these paintings are typical of the artist’s deeply felt emotions, inspired by actual experiences in his immediate environment. To appreciate the paintings, the complete collection must be viewed as a whole; they become visual scribbling in an incomplete diary, each element representing words and sentences in a larger visual narrative of the artist’s life and adventures.
In this body of works, modulations of color are stretched over infinite or calculated geometric space, encouraging us to examine closely, the tonal presence of partly covered hues and textures as they sit in delicate balance in both symmetrical and asymmetrical planes. Montera’s ability to conjure up a sense of calm over chaos in the visual organization of his elements has since become a concrete expression in his past exhibitions. The show marks the artist’s sixth solo exhibition and his second for this year.
The Bluewater Gallery is located in Maribago Bluewater Beach Resort in Mactan Island, Cebu and is open from 10AM to 6PM on weekdays and from 10AM to 8PM on weekends. Non-resort guests are requested to call Ms. Juliet Amazona at 492-1808 or 232-5411 and arrange for an exhibit viewing appointment. For inquiries, you can call the above numbers or email the gallery at

Love Theories

Art Center, SM City Cebu, North Reclamation Road, Cebu City, Philippines

“Love Theories” SM Art Center Cebu

February with all its clichés attached is the month of love and will always be a time for loving. And SM Art Center’s love offering will be a concept show on the art of loving by four local contemporary Cebuano artists. “Love Theories” by the artists group “Tuslob-Buwa” will showcase four individual experiences on love. The four aspects will dwell on love-lust, love-lists, love-lost, and love lasts.

Full-time artist Evan Bejec’s visual essay on love-list is a kind of New Year’s wish list. Here he makes a presentation on love that he wants to happen including his aspirations on what love means to him. His listings are personal ideals in the concrete form of both painting and sculpture.

Tackling of a love that’s lost, abstract expressionist artist and U.P. Fine Arts professor Dennis ‘Sio’ Montera will provide a visual teaching instruction. These are thoughts and raw feelings represented by abstract ideas. Montera’s works are often in a conceptual form and non-figurative imagery depicted in multi-layered color field works. His works are profound appropriations of the artist’s emotions from losing a special someone.

Jojo Sagayno is a member of the USC Fine Arts faculty and is the only one married in the group hence as a family man with two kids explores the fulfillment of loving and being loved in return. Doing composite media works combined with painting as a signature in his art making he concentrates our family bound love for country and countrymen.

The lust for love is akin to lust for life and Ritchie Quijano believes that the ultimate purpose and reason for living is to love. Thereby as an artist he sees it as of paramount importance to express it in art. The heart being the universal symbol of love takes a prominent place in the series of artworks he made.

Full of personal symbolisms “Love Theories” is a highly autobiographical sketch on love-related experiences each of the four artists underwent. “Love Theories” is the second major exhibition to start the year by the “Tuslob-Buwa” Artists Group and will be unveiled at the SM Art Center starting on February 2, 2007 and to last until the whole world celebrates Valentines Day.