Unframing the Muse
Write-up by Katherine Flor Castillo.
“One is not born, but rather becomes a woman.” – Simone de Beauvoir
Muses, mothers, and spiritual incarnations. A primordial four-cornered cage that paints the image of womanhood in the art canon.
History often crafts its stories centered on the tales of men, with its women counterparts left hanging in the threadbare corners of the paper. Although existing just as much as their male counterparts, women have always lived through art as muses, stilted and pinned as an object of desire, admiration, and devotion, no matter what form of medium it comes from.
Infamous muses such as Fernando Amorsolo’s romantic orientalized maidens, Juan Luna’s mystifying wife, and Botong Franciscos’ unearthly Maria Makiling are only a few of the most well-known representations of womanhood in local art history. An obscure and stereotypical interpretation that peels away the body, mind, and soul of the feminine experiences. And only a grain on the surface of what womanhood is, these are what is mostly seen in the canon, a romanticized and objectified version of the female identity that lacks narrative and soul.
What is history anyway but our memories told? And who can best tell the stories of womanhood but women themselves?
Elif Shafak referred to womanhood as a “transmission of memory,” from Imelda Cajipe-Endaya’s authentic depiction of the reality under the tyranny of the Marcos Dictatorship Pacita Abad’s evocative and conscientious threads of culture and identity, and Anita Magsaysay-Ho’s graceful yet playful strokes that inspired many. These are only some of the stories that frame our narratives interlaced from our identity with the feminist struggle in navigating history, culture, class, and sexuality—a unique pattern of intersectionality that navigates beyond and between the feminine identity and sexuality, the experience of womanhood, in all its forms and phases.
Unframing the Muse reframes and reclaims the narratives of Filipina womanhood through a collection of works from Filipina artists and visual storytellers Aiya Balingit, Genavee Lazaro, Joyce Ignacio, Judith Basco, Maricar Tolentino, Nika Dizon, Peeb, Silay Guilaran, and Victoria Fabella. The exhibition paints the image of women outside the canon patriarchal gaze—a revered image of a woman birthed from the stories interweaved by those before us through shared memories and experiences, a story born out of labor from our own voices. The show crafts a space for addressing and re-addressing the gaps in modern history, continuously defining and redefining the concept of femininity, and how we want to be represented, collectively and independently—as women.