The Jumalons at Bacolod?s Orange Gallery

The famous father-daughter duo, Edwin Jumalon and Amihan, had a successful run of their side-side solo exhibit at Orange Gallery in Bacolod City with renowned director Peque Gallaga as guest of honor recently. Bacolod?s art lovers and collectors raved about their paintings. The Jumalon Family whose house is an art haven itself in Pasonanca, Zamboanga City is getting to be known in the art circle around our country. Only son, Winner Jumalon, is a renowned figure in Manila and in international auction houses, honored last year as a Thirteen Artists awardee; Jana Jumalon-Alano, who creates bold terra-cotta sculptures, writes music and has made Dumaguete her home; and Lorna Fernandez, Edwin?s wife, has just completed her eighth solo exhibit at Gallery of Davao.While the family of artists expanded their territories outward, Edwin and Amihan continue to plumb inward, plunging into the unconscious to surface with works that are compelling and relevant. Together, as fellow artists who share their love for the romantic and the surreal, they exhibit their solo shows, entitle Tinged Illusions by Edwin Jumalon and Queen Building by Amihan.In ?Tinged Allusions,? Jumalon?s 10th solo exhibit, Edwin continues to churn out visual images and styles with restless abandon. This time, still denying overt design and plunging into the absurd, he shuffles figures and objects together and paints them in wildly different styles so they no longer retain their logical meaning. Instead, the resulting associations create a powerful dream-sense.As in his last exhibit, Jumalon incorporates the figure of a child in his canvases. We get a sense of nostalgia from the artist and the father over the loss of these innocent years, and he imbues children, whose senses not yet fully grounded in reality, with the gift of prophecy.In the whimsically titled ?But This Time You Give Me 13 Apples,? we see a young boy gazing at a vision of forbidden fruit. He contemplates a cornucopia of images, which include floating apples, a frog, a remote control and a faceless trio of women.Visions of impending time are also hinted in ?A Day in Bethany,? which hints at young girls awakening into womanhood. We see them walking in a garden of bizarre-looking flowers. We see a group of men sweating and lifting boxes as they are boxed themselves. In the foreground, we see a nude statue of a woman, a Venus de Milo.In ?Queen Building,? Amihan chronicles the clash of roles she experienced as a new mother and a mature artist, and personifies the inevitable battles as archetypes or daimons which have become her subjects for the exhibit.She presents her all-female cast of muses, and steers clear of the expressionist style that has become the signature of most young artists. She has opted instead to present her work in clean lines and textures, like illustrations of the past.In ?Iron Maiden,? ?Gatekeeper? and ?Watchwoman,? she parades her female figures?victorious and imperial-looking, emphasizing animus and drawing strength from their qualities of invincibility and will power.It is a proclamation that the artist is here, that she has been marshalling her forces, and that she has never gone away. It is here that we catch an inkling of why the show is called ?Queen Building?: It is a metaphor of women?s roles and art, of the journey across the board to gather power, and to realize that an empress must have authority to protect not only her children and family, but the things which she loves. In her case, art itself.Captions:Amihan, Peque Gallaga, Edwin Jumalon, and Razcel Salvarita.Iel Jumalon Fernandez, Bendix Fernandez, Amihan, Is Jumalon, and Edwin Jumalon.Watchwoman by Amihan.GarteKeeper by Amihan.Edwin Jumalon and Amihan.But Now You Give me Thirteen Apples by Edwin Jumalon.A Day in Bethany by Edwin Jumalon.ABS-CBN interviews Edwin Jumalon.

Via Zamboanga Times