Three Ilonggos win in the Phil. Art Awards 2007 for Visayas
Guijo Duenas receives his award
FOUR Ilonggos won in the Philippine Art Awards 2007 held at the Negros Museum last November. They were Cezar Arro, Guijo Duenas, and Jyh Ming Gonzales. Four from other parts of Western Visayas also made it. They were Gary Custodio from Kalibo, Aklan, Roedil Geraldo from Talisay City, Negros Occidental, Raymond Legaspi from Bacolod City and Frank Alexi Nobleza from Nueva Valencia, Guimaras.
Arro's work "Unmasked" was a portrayal of plethora of faces trying to find space in a purgatory of seemingly damned souls. Duenas' work "The Atlas of Kiirtana" illustrates how the mantras or kiirtanas are chanted devotionally to attain a certain realization or level of consciousness just as one practices yoga. Gonzales' "The Art of War" arranges repeatedly, bullets, mesmerizing in their metallic beauty, mutating into patterns of the attire of combat: the camouflage. Legaspi's "Global Warming Water Rising" conveys deceivingly simple in composition with a clear focus on the image of a woman, with an overly corpulent body dressed in her everyday house dress with crowded prints immediately conveying suffocating indulgence and the abuse of the earth's resources. As she covers her face with her hands to block her eyes from seeing reality, her head is depicted to connote a brain too small, to confront a dire impending doom.
Custodio's "Dos" has a somber, brooding mood with its use of dark tones and an undefined shadowy figure set against a window. Geraldo's "Duming Hamog sa Aking Pagtulog" creates a mantle of floral design on a worn-out mat. Nobleza's "Living Mummy" showcases a labyrinth of improvised contraptions of mummies in various states of action, going through the motions of breaking free, challenging barriers of oppression and desperation.
They were among the 10 winners selected from 196 entries from the Visayas. Each received P40,000 and will have the chance to compete at the national finals of the Philippine Arts Awards in 2008 and receive the Grand Prize of P350,000 or be one of the five Juror's Choice winners who will receive P120,000 each. All the 2008 National Winners will also receive an all-expense paid trip to Hanoi, Vietnam.