Words Amanda Juico Dela Cruz
April 12, 2024

Pabsie Martus, Fellow Feeling V (2024), Oil on canvas, 60 x 48 in.

There is a distinction between feminist art and art created by women. Not all works created by women are feminist. Some shows were put up to celebrate women artists but do not necessarily tackle women’s experiences. Some were curated to meditate on the journey of the female body—the materiality, the changes, the resilience, and the miracles it can do. While the artworld have become more accepting of women, some shows are still (rightly) fighting for women’s visibility. Regardless, it is just right to celebrate women artists beyond women’s month for they fought for their place in the artworld since history can remember.

“Matrix II: Women Artists From the Collections of the Ateneo Art Gallery and Ambeth R. Ocampo” by Pacita Abad, Paz Abad Santos, Ambie Abaño, Lanelle Abueva, Catalina Africa, Yasmin Almonte Lantz, Agnes Arellano, Lydia Arguilla, Ringo Bunoan, Nana Buxani, Annie Cabigting, Belinda Caguiat, Imelda Cajipe-Endaya, Lena Cobangbang, Gilda Cordero Fernando, Maria Cruz, Marina Cruz Tapaya, Kiri Dalena, Lizza May David, Anne De Guzman, Yasmin Doctor, Francesca Enriquez, Brenda V. Fajardo, Karen Ocampo Flores, Corinne Fernandez Garcia, Ofelia Gelvezon-Tequi, Mia Herbosa, Geraldine Javier, Lou Lim, Araceli Limcaco Dans, Julie Lluch, Anita Magsaysay-Ho, Joy Mallari, Lui Medina, Caledonia Ongpin, Henrielle Pagkaliwangan, Lee Paje, Yolanda Perez Johnson, Impy Pilapil, Mervy Pueblo, Nelfa Querubin, Nena Saguil, Catherine Salazar, Maria Taniguchi, Sandra Torrijos, Pamela Yan Santos, Tanya Villanueva, and MM Yu at the Ateneo Art Gallery

Twenty-two years ago, Matrix: Works by Filipino Women in the Ateneo Art Gallery happened. It featured seventeen artists. Their works represented the art practices of the twentieth century with works from the 50s to the 90s. Twenty-two years after, the second iteration was put up in celebration of women’s month. From seventeen, the 2024 iteration now features fifty artists spanning four generations. Their works display their aesthetic preoccupations—the risks they took in experimenting with form and in dismantling what is conventional. While some works are a testimony of their personal lives because the personal, for women, is always political.

“Cause/Cure” by Christina Dy and Corinne de San Jose at Artinformal

A decade has passed since the last collaboration between Christina Dy and Corinne de San Jose. They come together again to meditate on the materiality of the human body. Drawing from their own experiences—from their own bodies’ lived experiences through time—they confront as much as console in their storytelling of the narratives on movement, chronic pain, diagnosis, and healing. It is a narrative that is not linear, but a loop that comes with the fragility and resilience of the human flesh. The works, then, are visual works on the female body seen and created through the female gaze.

Photo from Metropolitan Museum of Manila

“Wild: Women Abstractionists on Nature by Sarah Awad, Christine Ay Tjoe, Andrea Marie Breiling, Cecily Brown, Katarina Caserman, Héloïse Chassepot, Nicole Coson, Corinne De San Jose, Wonhee “Whee” Delgado, Mandy El-Sayegh, Camilla Engström, Francesca Enriquez, Jadé Fadojutimi, Katharina Grosse, Jennifer Guidi, Han Bing, Angela Heisch, Donna Huanca, Jin Jeong, Sara Jimenez, Antonia Kuo, Jane Lee, Li Hei Di, Yanjun Li, Kylie Manning, Jo Messer, Elizabeth Neel, Dawn Ng, A’Driane Nieves, Mariana Oushiro, Lauren Quin, Pinaree Sanpitak, Mary Weatherford, Zhang Zipiao, and curated by Kathy Huang at Metropolitan Museum of Manila

This exhibition is a response to some provocations: to the 1958 exhibition Nature in Abstraction in Whitney Museum of American Art that focused on how nature could be expressed through abstraction, to women-focused exhibitions and scholarships that cultivate women artists in the landscape of abstract expressionism, and to the exclusion of women outside of the Western art world in such discourses. Taking its title from Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild, the works in this exhibition examines the similarities as well as the differences between the works of men and of women, and among women from the East, the West, and the diasporic.

“The White Hole” by Isha Naguiat, Bea Aspiras, Faye Pamintuan, Jan Sunday, Ikang Gonzales, Kia, Kimberly Sultan, Miel Cabanes, Ange Labyrinth, Belle Maurice, Zabiel Nemenzo, Vodka, Polet Neri, Ceona Gonzales, and curated by Jan Sunday at Kalawakan Spacetime

The works are an introspection of one’s personal realities. But the works are a portal too to the physical as well as to ethereal realms. The works are a navigation of space. But they are a reimagination of time too. Taking cue from Ludwig Flamm’s idea of white hole that spits out light and matter—a hypothetical region in the spacetime that appears and explodes spontaneously—the idea behind the exhibition reeks of possibilities. Through paintings, sculptures, and mixed media, the artists imagine the mundane as well as the divine, the everyday as well as the out of this world.

Photo from Altro Mondo Arte Contemporanea

“Between Starshine and Clay II” by Antonia Baytion, Marionne Contreras, Sarah Geneblazo, Titat Ledesma, Pabsie Martus, Isha Naguiat, Georgina Pomarejos, Eunice Sanchez, Maricar Tolentino, and Ciane Xavier at Altro Mondo Arte Contemporanea

Antonia creates from a place of introspection. Marionne draws from the personal to talk about the political. Titat’s preoccupation is the environment. Pabsie displays her mastery in light, balance, and color. Isha seeks the name of what makes something whole or rooted. Georgina chooses watercolor to materialize her emotional states. Eunice is after the photographic processes vis-à-vis memory keeping. Maricar subverts sewing, wielding the needle and thread as weapon against oppressors. Ciane’s works are a culmination of her exploration of selfhood and identity. The works of art in this exhibition showcase the complexities in these women artist’s preoccupations, practice, and risk-taking.

“Renewed Reveries” by Anna Maniego at Arte Bettina

Her poems come from a place that rectifies failures, confronts darkness, consoles pains, offers hopes, and utters prayers. These words on paper are then translated onto canvases using oil paint. The visual translations are works of abstract painting, textured and vibrant. Her strokes resemble horizons, bodies of water, and cityscapes. Beside her visuals works are her poems. It is an interplay of visual and text, of pain and beauty, of failure and success, and of desperation and inspiration. A symphony, so to speak. QR codes lead to the audio reading by Beng Pascua, Carlo Magdaluyo, Carlos Cariño, and Bing Kimpo.

Celebrating women artists beyond women’s month: Exhibitions in April 2024

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