Category Archive

It was two years ago when Sunshine showed me Henna Banana, Rastah Man, and one more, the title of which escapes me now. They were so good; I immediately pledged to purchase them.

Sunshine Plata, Shine or Shinee to friends, has got a new brew, so different from all the rest. It is pleasant, invigorating, and so satisfying — aesthetically, that is. Her brew? Coffee art. Not familiar? Because it is new.

She started painting with coffee as one of her media in 2000, after seeing a 19th century signature written in coffee in a Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Museum. She thought then: “if coffee can be used as ink, why not paint?”
And her love affair with coffee began.

Although still producing other artworks using other media, she focused on coffee painting last year. She has produced more than 40 coffee paintings since she started with the new medium, including 31 artworks intended for her first solo exhibit at the Casino Español along T.M. Kalaw Avenue in Manila on January 12. Entitled LSD Trip by Caffeine, where LSD stands for “look, smell, discover”, the show is a must-see for everybody. The date also falls on Shinee’s 28th birthday.

Her collection embodies her dreams and memories of childhood. They are mostly surreal — in a whimsy sense. She caught those ideas and painted them all on the canvas where they can be shared. As the works are all good, I pledged (again!) to work on a site for her. It is a collaborative work between us and after gathering all the materials, we have come up with Kapeng Mahiwaga ng Isang Diwata (her title).

If you want to see more of her work, click the above link to go there; the site is gaining more viewers each day when it opened only this January 9. Also don’t forget to sign up in the Guestbook when you get there.

And if you will be near the exhibit area this weekend, do drop by and be awed. Casino Español opens at around 10am but Shinee will be on site by 6pm onwards to receive guests. Be there and see her shine through her works!

Reference:

For the 35mm film and stamp effects, get them from PanosFX.

I remember my literature professor whenever he comes in class, saying: Destroy what is there and create something that will expand the horizon of the people.

What is already there limits what people ideate; whereas, when you destroy it and create something fresh, you’ve gone beyond what was there and have expanded how people form their ideas.

Figuratively or literally, the relation between destruction and creation is analogous to that of a parasite to its host. One feeds on the other. It could either be that destruction feeds on creation, or vice versa. Either way, the relationship exists. They can’t be both hosts, and neither can both be parasites simultaneously.

By observation, it could have been the rationale behind what moved the conquistadors of the Old World in their search for what they have termed the New World; for in their various quests, they did not set their flags on the shores to befriend the inhabitants of an island or a continent. They were there to plunder, ravage and then settle.

It was surely what was behind Karl Marx’s mind when he wrote Das Kapital in an attempt to pull off his new ideology in a treatise against capitalism, which, with the collaboration of Friedrich Engels’ The Communist Manifesto, was embraced “in 1917 by a small party of Russian exiles” who “took advantage of the collapse of the Tsarist regime under the strains of war”. Communism was born, similarly as the New World was, or, to put it correctly, as other foreign territories were conquered.

VALUE OF BLOOD. Phil Hansen’s ‘bloody statement’ in art of the revered “Eternal President” of North Korea, Kim Jong-il.

Destroying and creating, as poignant as it is, is true. One exists because of the other. It is like a balm for those whose ideas are bigger than themselves. The likes of Jose Rizal, or Albert Einstein, or JFK — people who have made their niche in history for changing the way people think. Ideas bigger than the establishment. Aw, there are but many of them to include on this page with all their contributions to the world. I’m sure you have your own list.

Here’s a new addition to mine. An art school dropout, Phil Hansen, of St. Paul, Minnesota is not only tearing down the gallery walls that keep many people from seeing and enjoying art, he’s the new boy-wonder creating his works in an out-of-the-box fashion while at the same time shaming the people who pretended to be authorities of an established art form. He’s now giving them a run for their _______ (add the appropriate noun after you visited the links). I’d say, worth. And he is running his show, sans the hobnobbings, the snubs and the sophisticats in the galleries.

Awesome!