An Italian in Manila: An Exhibition Tribute to Mrs. Silvana Diaz

(43 years of Philippine Art Patronage)

R.M De Leon, Jonathan Olazo, Trek Valdizno

 

 

September 1 – 29 2018
Opening Reception: September 1, Saturday at 4pm
Galleria Duemila
210 Loring St. 1300 Pasay City

 

This coming September 1 will be an exhibition thrown by the closest artist friends of  Silvana Ancellotti-Diaz who will celebrate her 43 years of dedication and art patronage through the establishment of Galleria Duemila (the longest running commercial gallery) and organizing major exhibition and retrospectives throughout these years.

Silvana Diaz was previously the Vice Chairman and Chairman of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts on the Committee on Art Galleries and was the founding member of the Guild of Galleries, sponsored by the Cultural Center of the Philippine. At present, she continues to be a part of the Advisory Council of the Heritage Conservation Society, the Vice President for Culture since 2002 at the Philippine-Italian Association and the Art Director of Galleria Duemila. She is married to well-known Filipino Artist, Ramon Diaz.

An Italian in Manila: An Exhibition Tribute to Mrs. Silvana Diaz (43 years of Philippine Art Patronage), traverses the friendship and the support Mrs. Silvana Diaz has catered to these artists. It is time to reverse the spotlight, to pull the theme around and reflect on all the help and support of all the cultural workers most specifically an Italian woman in Manila.

The participating artists are R.M de Leon, Jonathan Olazo and Trek Valdizno.

 

Crazy Fun Pier by Jonathan Olazo
Crazy Fun Pier by Jonathan Olazo (24 x 18 in)

 

Jonathan Olazo graduated from the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts with a major in Painting in 1992. In 1994, he was awarded the Thirteen Artists Award by the Cultural Center of the Philippines. An abstractionist painter, an art critic and a former Fine Arts instructor admits to the fact that writing is an integral part of his process as an artist. Growing up in the arts with his father being the late artist Romulo Olazo, Jonathan has magnified the use of light and texture in his abstraction process, his visual planes often blur out each other, a more subdued process than his early perpetual awe of Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline’s art.

 

Birth of Venus by Trek Valdizno
Birth of Venus by Trek Valdizno, 60 in x 60 in

 

Trek Valdizno is a graduate of the University of the Philippines with a degree in Fine Arts major in Painting. His works has been exhibited in Ayala Museum, Vargas Museum and Cultural Center of the Philippines. He also did commissioned and collaborative works in various international institutions in Australia, Hong Kong and France. His art is a conscious, spiritual practice that allows him to traverse through different brushstrokes resulting into large-scale compositions that engulf the viewer into its majesty and elegance. Breaking down the components of his works, you can see the fascination and careful consideration in the littlest-bit of elements.

 

Untitled Abstraction 7 by R.M de Leon
Untitled Abstraction 7 by R.M de Leon (36 x 48 in) mixed media on paper, 2018

 

R.M de Leon is the First Filipino awardee in Studio Arts in Painting in the Vermont Studio Center in Vermont U.S.A and was the 13th Artists Awardee of the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 1990. His current works drew inspiration in storybook characters and cartoons that he found graphic and playful. In figurativism, it is a straightforward identification of symbols and enigma. R.M intervenes through cutting imagery that force imagination and wonder to the otherwise familiar narrative of early childhood memories.