To 2013

It may be a tad bit early but we here in Vinyl on Vinyl would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year! Here's to more art, music, new experiences and great company! Cheers everybody!

It's all in the Mind

All in the mind

In the mind’s eye lives a delirious blur of illusions, both chaotic and serene. A clash of colors, abstract figures and the faint hint of familiarity lead’s the mind to think against itself and question its truth. Is it real? Or is it all in my head? In the crevices that separate the real from the surreal, we find the rhythmical and colorful chaos that Arkiv Vilmansa weaves.

With the immaterial proportions of a dream, Arkiv plays with irony and attempts to encapsulate madness in a box. With fluid lines and an ebbing tide of brazen colors, a spectrum in disarray and a backdrop of ambiguous imagery, equilibrium is formed.

Take a step into Arkiv’s world and gaze upon the faces and symphonies that play with reality and beg to question if it is all in the mind.

Indonesian artist Arkiv Vilmansa has certainly come along way from home. Since his debut in 2005 his work been featured in countless galleries all over the world, from Indonesia to the U.S., from Germany to the Philippines; all of which has made him a household name within the contemporary art and toy scene.

With the 2011 Biennale, a slew of exhibits past, forthcoming shows and an upcoming auction at the renowned Sotheby’s under his belt, Arkiv shows no signs of slowing down

Frown not!

RAINBOW DECAY

speak upon you
as you stroke the first lines
of this thing that defines
something you know art

a body of flesh we are, i told you
you answered were not

a gathered fact, in a span of time
defines your existence

but you have said it's not

i asked you
to define
what is you about?

you draw a skull
in his lollipop

were always be the young men, you said
trapped on our rotting bodies
our youth plays, you said
in a coy of living dirty

your things look down upon me with compassion
even that famous mustache
had not escaped
your imaginations

giving life to dreams
and stories of real time
oh, this is not history in your imagery

when we were skulls
eventually...and literally
soon we'll be powderized
oh so freakin literally

frown not, our bodies travel
on the cosmic
on the mountains
on winter soil
and summer breeze
landing some of our pieces
on someone else's teacups
traveling on their physical bodies
to their imaginations
and dreams

they would say they know you
but they know not
creating another life
of a young boy and his bike
and his cat
and his father
and his chap.


____________________________________________________________________

Ren Quinio was born on a not so cloudy day of August, 26 years back. Since knowing how to use his brain on such passion, his room had been flooding out of imaginations and dreams of becoming and having something like this - a solo exhibit of his creations.
Once inspired by street art and still life ( a not so nice combination) he then found his eye for Pop Surreal and Low brow art, creating his own style of bringing out rainbows on a decaying stage of life.

Going past the SURFACE

What is a portrait?

Pressed against the black painted walls of Vinyl on Vinyl are portraits of countless characters, with or without a face. From empty frames to seemingly empty silhouettes, the exhibit paints a picture worth a thousand words.

Pilipinas Streets Plan’s very own, DEFS and VR, takes refuge in VOV and redefines the meaning of a portrait. From the plain-Jane notion of a ‘composed image of an individual’ comes a new definition that goes beyond the face of man.  From faces of the flesh to blank surfaces, DEFS and VR creates ‘something admired, something that makes you want to look forward to seeing on a daily basis, and something iconic.’

‘Surface’  was displayed in Vinyl on Vinyl last September 29-October 17, 2012. Pass on by and get re-educated on surfaces and portraits.

A look back into Unstable Mutations

 

As you come closer and peer into the four walls of vinyl on vinyl, notice it peering back. It cannot be misconstrued, the countless eyes that breathe life into the dark, black walls of the gallery. Take a look and it will take a look back.

Forms, all seemingly familiar yet hauntingly unknown, are sewn together, with no purpose of physical fluidity, weaving threads of irony and creating a harmony of chaotic madness; a fair share of unstable mutations.

With the creeping feeling where the unknown seems familiar, Rai Cruz finds refuge.

Rai Cruz’s one-man show ‘Unstable Mutations’ is nothing short of unforgettable. Bringing street art into the confines of inner space is in itself a feat, but he goes one step further and plays along with all kinds of creatures, from the strange to the even stranger.

For his first one-man show, Rai Cruz has made a pretty big impression.

City Creatures

Katrina Stuart Santiago

October 2012

The task of moving street art from public to private space demands a necessary reassessment of its value. Graffiti after all is necessarily a form of resistance, it’s presence on public walls carrying the weight of rebellion. Its move to the gallery is graffiti’s undoing, where the largeness of street art can only be stunted.

Unstable Mutations is a set of works that do not fall into this trap, even as it is in a gallery, even when its images are borne of the streets. These are not works made smaller by the move into private space, as these are works that co-exist with its larger versions on public walls.

Think of it as an extension of the city streets, the creatures here the new members of the community that public art inevitably builds.

And it is a nation of creatures that grow out of the city’s concreteness, that are borne of its daily grind. Whether large and on public walls, or small and hanging in a gallery, these images speak of a city at the crux of development and destruction, where everything evolves into unknowable and unfamiliar, living and breathing, bodies. Ones that respond to the city’s demands, ones who make up the marginal narratives we do not hear, the people we do not see.

Those who live off our cities become creatures of its undoing and decay. That they seem to be in constant evolution is there instability. That they grow more and more creatively is the gift of urbanity and development. These are the city’s inhabitants we refuse to see, the ones whose noise we do not hear, the ones we leave behind as we enter the comfortable clean walls of the homes we build.

The power of denial is such that we do not know our own reflections.

But we have no choice now. They are here.

Your days are numbered!

Keep an eye out!

Dr Sketchy's Manila "THE SEA TEMPTRESS"

Despite the rainfall, last September 14, among artists and close encounters, Vinyl on Vinyl dove head first into the provocative sea of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School for a night filled with ‘sexy sirens, spirits and sketches,’ proving that we’re not afraid to get a little wet.

In true Dr. Sketchy’s fashion, the night was filled with the sound of scribbling pens and the sensual display of a mermaid, or in this case, a ‘SEA TEMPTRESS.’ The night’s art muse, Lolita, decorated the intimate space with regal, under the sea sexy for the on looking artists. With a generous serving of detailed costumes and eye-catching back drops, and a delicious main course of mermaids and sketchbooks, Dr. Sketchy’s the ‘SEA TEMPTRESS’ was a splashing success. Pun intended.

SEA TEMPTRESS images By Louie Manay


THE TEAM
The Sea Temptress "Lolita" - Monique Degolacion
Stylist and Makeup - Royale House and Victor Loong
Wire sculptures by Shekinah Valdez
Dani Rose Arevalo
Janine Lothovich
Gunship Revolution
Spidersilk Productions

SURFACE exhibit opens this Saturday (DEFS + VR)

Join us as we open DEFS + VR's two-man show SURFACE on September 30, Saturday, 8pm onwards at Vinyl on Vinyl.

TARSIUS vinyl launch at Vinyl on Vinyl tonight!

Visit the TARSIUS page HERE.

Illegal Gathering exhibit at Flabslab Singapore

Vinyl on Vinyl and Gabby Tiongson in Singapore!

Flabslab brings selected artists for a pre-stgcc gathering!

See you tonight at Flabslab, 1 Commonwealth , 06-11 One Commonwealth, Singapore

Upcoming show: A Letter from Manila (Chill x Bato)

The streets of Manila are diversified dwelling for art, people and culture. It’s panorama of different eras describes the past, present and future of once most sophisticated place in the Philippines.

The art of graffiti resides in Manila’s walls in common with today’s inhabitants, business and its law enforcements which are incorporated with BATO’s pieces. His lines form blissful architectural symmetry and letters mixed with blunt colors representing the souls meeting in the streets everyday. When one portion is gone, the feel of Manila will never be the same.

These are the same memories present in the works of CHILL. His personal dreamland came from the souls that he met along his journey. The faces from film, music and popular culture are fined through Letras Y Figuras, reviving Filipino’s unsung signature style using contour and colors of humans and objects in creating art scripts.

This is the culture that tells the story of Manila from the eyes of the two young artists collaborated to redefine graffiti and street art more just vandalism and destruction. It is part of their lives and yours too. This is a letter from Manila.

- Words by Anna Villena

Check out CHILL X BATO's teaser video HERE . 

Robotars show postponed to July 25!

Due to the bad weather, the Robotars Custom Show 2 will open on July 25, Wednesday.  

ROBOTARS CUSTOM SHOW 2 OPENING TOMORROW!

The 2^nd Robotars Custom Show features over 40 artists composed of graphic designers, painters and illustrators from Manila. Some of which are JeAA, Nico Deacosta, Sigmund Torre, Quiccs, Anjo Bolarda,  Nemo, and awesome members of Ang InK and Pilipinas Street Plan. Special international artists from Singapore (curated by ToysRevil) and Rome (Street artist Bol23).

Robtars (robot tarsiers) is an independently-produced designer resin figure by JomikeTejido, an architect and artist. This urban art toy is based on the tarsier, a threatened species of tiny primates found in the Philippines and represents love for the environment thru urban art. The figure is a 6-inch resin sculpture with a hidden storage pod in its head and includes a collector’s card. Jomike Tejido’s creation was inspired by his trip to Tokyo in 2007 and aims to let Robotars hop all over the globe.

 

The exhibit is also the official launch of the 100 limited edition blindboxes of handpainted Robotars figures. Among these, 12 chase figures were made by Filipino graphic artists, street artists, illustrators and painters such as Jason Moss, Electrolychee, Weewilldoodle, Mark Salvatus, Dex Fernandez, Zeus Bascon and many more.

 

The action-packed opening night shall have:

-        The 1^st release of Limited-edition Robotars tees!

-        Free Robotars kids’ magazines for early attendees!

-        A live painting collaboration with Quiccs, Anjo Bolarda and Jomike Tejido!

-        An on-the-spot design competition, with Robotars blindboxes and tees at stake!

 

Enter our hero robotar (Artie’s) world today! Hop to www.jmtejido.com/robotars and play the free online game!

 

FB: Robotars Manila

Twitter: @Robotars

Special Thanks to Vibla Publishing house and urban art bloggers ToysRevil, Geekmatic, Azraelsmerryland, Spankystokes, Plasticandplush, and Vinylpulse.

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The 7 Chronicles of Madness

Lunacy and lunar cycles

The Maya Calendar predicted that the world would end in 2012. In The 7 Chronicles of Madness, artists Froilan Calayag and Ramona Dela Cruz-Gaston have taken this prophetic circle of doom and turned it into a labyrinthine carnival overflowing with naïf creatures, esoteric symbols, inside jokes, personal memories, snatches of everyday conversations, and meditations on the future.

Calayag, a well-established artist with five solo exhibitions, is a dark prince of fairy tales. His three-dimensional paintings, sinister and beguiling at once, are populated by deceivingly charming beasts with predatory eyes and rictus grins. His brush is capricious, guided solely by the whims of his imagination.

Dela Cruz-Gaston, on the other hand, is an art-scene ingénue who favors the mandala—technical, geometric, and deliberate—as her medium. Her flat-perspective symmetrical designs require methodical planning that is almost the antithesis of Calayag’s impulsive nature.

Chaos and calculation meet in The 7 Chronicles of Madness, a transcendent display of artistry. The show’s 7’x7’centerpiece, titled Mad Calendar, is collaboration in the truest sense of the word. Calayag and Dela Cruz-Gaston painted together, pushing each other to new creative heights. Looking at the finished oil-on-canvas work, it

is impossible to tell where one artist ends and the other begins.

Composition-wise, the concentric circles that make up Mad Calendar echo the piece’s Mayan foundation. At its center, a hybrid creature, white-furred and open-mouthed, replaces the Tonatiuh, the Mexican sun god. Around this blue-eyed beast are four layers, teeming with images.

In the innermost wheel, the four elements—earth, water, air, and fire—alternate with human basic needs. Beyond, the four cardinal directions punctuate 12 petals, one for every month of the year; and in the outermost wheel, 31 divisions representing the number of days in a month. The 12 signs of the Zodiac are likewise present, scattered throughout the circles.

Avatars of Calayag and Dela Cruz-Gaston—a prickly pumpkin and a young girl with lucky clovers in her hair, respectively—watch the colorful abundance unspool before them.  In place of the Maya Calendar’s glyphs, the artists have painted brief but luminous visual metaphors, which, taken together, form a radial constellation so full and so generous that the eye is overwhelmed.

This visual bounty is separated from a black void by a wall assaulted on all fronts by a noxious green morass of negativity: a knife through a heart, broken crayons and broken dreams, general decay. The wall holds firm. Battered as it is, it is not breached.

Mad Calendar is complemented by six works (hence The 7 Chronicles of Madness), three oil-on-paper paintings, also circular in composition, from each artist. Completed after the show’s collaborative centerpiece, these smaller, individual works bear witness to how the mimetic process affected both Calayag and Dela Cruz-Gaston.

Dela Cruz-Gaston had an epiphany while looking at her most recent work: “I’ve to realize that the purpose of collaboration is not to paint or draw side by side with your partner,” she said. “It is to learn.”

The impact on her rendering style is visible, and she is not loath to admit it. “I’ve seen great changes, which I cannot undo. These changes don’t just happen because many artists—myself included—can be

egotistical.”

Calayag, with a few pointed words, explained that the exercise was a success because he and Dela Cruz-Gaston were kindred spirits: “We’re probably old souls that met before.”

The 7 Chronicles of Madness is a prime example of how true collaboration can stoke the fires of creation. It is a show born out of mutual respect and admiration. It is an unconscious, unselfish embrace of another’s divine inspiration. — ll

The exhibit opens on June 30, 8pm onwards at Vinyl on Vinyl gallery at The Collective, 7274 Malugay St, Makati.


To see the rest of the artworks, click HERE.  


Visit our page!  

Iconopop

Art has always been an ever-changing, infinitely morphing animal. But such change has not seen anything as drastic as it has in the last decade. As the liberating light of social media and the internet blankets our shared consciousness, so does it cast dark shadows on the fringes and empty byways. Today’s Pop Culture, and the Art mirrored by it, has forever transformed.

Yesterday’s art feels distant, as if eons have passed.  Yesteryears Pop Culture almost seems laborious; inspirations coming only from one’s local culture and what the Masters  Of Mass Media choose to hold sway over—to disseminate over to you or I. Imagination is supposed to be limitless, but only now does it feel this way.

Today’s Art is freedom. It is now a collective hive-mind of a shared culture, a worldly make up of ideals and wishes and purity. But most of all, today’s Pop Culture is unpretentious;  a shared experience that the same joke can be delivered to 2 distinct individuals oceans apart, yet laugh at the same time. Technology and social media has afforded our Pop Culture Art to be something it has never been:

Art is now Unity.

Art is the crashing rubble, where old walls stood wide and silent.

Art is our tangled web, and all the wondrous confusion that entails.

But mostly, Art is our mirror.

This exhibition is that reflection. It is the lipid pool where we all catch our reflections together; our waking dreams staring back at us, delivering the punch line. This time, unlike times past, we get it, and laugh and smile in unison.

Adrian Evangelista

Anjo Bolarda

Carmie Cucueco

Ciron Seneres

Dino Gabito

Dominic Alfonso

Iggy Rodriguez

Iyan de Jesus

JR Urao

Jepoy Almario

Kris Abrigo

Luis Hernandez

Soleil Ignacio

Tokwa Penaflorida

Michael Vincent Zacarias

Iconopop runs until June 27, 2012 at Vinyl on Vinyl Gallery, at The Collective 7274 Malugay St Makati. 


For exhibit more exhibit photos, click HERE.

SEE SAW, Various Visions of Balance

20 Somethings Seek ‘A Balanced Life’ Through Art

“Work-life balance” is the catchphrase of the 21st century workforce. They are ambitious and driven and ready to face their demanding careers, but many now recognize the importance of a holistic lifestyle. 

A diverse group of young professionals is staging an exhibit entitled "See, Saw: Various Visions of Balance" showcasing different works of art that aim to portray their own unique but very relatable struggles in their journey to lead happier and more fulfilled lives

"See, Saw" will feature paintings, photographs, installations, and digital and mixed media works by 11 different artists and individuals who are woven together by the common thread of passion in pursuing art, regardless of their day jobs and chosen fields. It will include contributions by Agnes Abesamis, Cess Abrahan, Trixie Banting, Christopher Esguerra, Kristel Ko, Gigi Lapid, Kristina Mendoza, Mikhail Quijano, Camille Quintos, Christine Salazar, and Margarita Tabag.

This undertaking is particularly relevant because of the modern Pinoy’s increasing inclination to engage in other life-enriching activities centered on general well-being. The exhibit’s focal point – life balance or sometimes the lack thereof – will prove to be an eye opener for anyone who has been challenged to achieve their own version of success, without compromising other valuable pursuits. 

The exhibit will be held at the Vinyl on Vinyl gallery at The Collective in 7274 Malugay Street, Makati City. The exhibit opens on May 5, 2012, Saturday, at 7pm and will run until May 24.  Visit the events page of  “See, Saw: Various Visions of Balance” on Facebook for more information about the event.