Pitter-Patter

Joie Pabilando

Opening
July 5, 2021

Art Elaan | Gallery Red
2nd Floor, Filipino Village, Ayala Malls Manila Bay, Diosdado Macapagal Blvd, cor Aseana Ave, Parañaque, Philippines

Landline: (02) 7 728-6577
Email: info@artelaan.com / inquiry.artelaan@gmail.com

“Raindrops are facewash for plants and perfume for soil”…

“Raindrops softly tapping the window is nature singing a sweet lullaby.” Nothing seems to turn a mood mellow and romantic than rain and raindrops. To others, however, raindrops spell blues and loneliness and heartaches, as in the still popular ditty, “Raindrops keep falling on my head.” Or the Cascades’ “Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain.” Each song carries a message “telling me what a fool I’ve been” and “the blues they send to meet me, won’t defeat me.”

Was the artist Joie Pabilando listening to these songs in his studio as the raindrops mixed their fluid effusions on his emerging watercolors?

Joie Pabilando’s exhibition at the Gallery Red of Art Elaan titled “Pitter-Patter” pays homage to one of nature’s blessings, and to an artist, the rain is perpetually a subject that is at once inspiring and challenging.

Since the ceaseless pitter-pattering of raindrops all collect into a diffused abstract form, the rain with its consequent watery images is never a static subject. Nonetheless, it is the impetus for Pabilando to capture these rainy images as direct drawing, a technical feat that every watercoloristmust achieve, if he were to be true to this medium of choice.

What fascinates Pabilando is the human interaction with the rain and it is as an observant artist that he takes particular delight and pleasure in the calmness of the scene before him, and even more stimulated by his subjects, such as the children astride their bicycles on a rainy day.

With the device of gaily colored umbrellas, all unfurled like a circular color chart brimming with the misty glow of reds, yellows, blues, oranges, pinks, and purples, Pabilando imbues his watercolors with an effervescent quality, as if the figures were indeed enjoying the state of being out in the rain, emphasizing the point that umbrellas are the natural referents of the rainy season.

When the medium of watercolor and the subject of rain are in seamless accord, made eloquent by technique, skill, and emotion, it’s as if, for a watercolorist like Joie Pabilando, the sun has come out.