VELASCO/RUBIO TWINBILL IMPORTANT “ART TREK”SHOW AT GALERIE JOAQUIN SINGAPORE
As its participation in Art Trek, the multigallery celebration of Philippine National Day, Galerie Joaquin Singapore presents a two-man show of top Filipino artists. Scheduled to open Saturday, June 7, 2008 at 7 pm is Lydia Velasco’s “Idyllic Summer” and Dominic Rubio’s “Old Asia”. Each artist will have eight works each which the prepared specially for the occasion. Galerie Joaquin Singapore is located at The Regent of Singapore, 1 Cuscaden Road, Singapore 249715. Tel. +65-67253113 or visit www.galeriejoaquin.com.sg.
Velasco and Rubio are among the most popular artists of the Galerie Joaquin group. Their works are collected all over the Southeast Asia region as well as in many European countries and in the U.S.A. Both artists’ works are included in many international auctions with Velasco doing well at Sotheby’s and recently garnering a record high in the recent Larasati auction for her 36” x 48” painting Spring.
This show actually marks the beginning of major shows and tributes for the artist as she celebrates her 20th year as a full time painter. Coming from a family who likes art, Velasco easily got the nod to pursue a career in Fine Arts at the University of Sto. Tomas. She majored in advertising, and landed a post in Philprom where she had the good fortune to work with two gentlemen (Cesar Legaspi and H.R. Ocampo) who would both become Philippine National Artists for the Visual Arts. Velasco inched her way up the corporate ladder, to eventually become art director for such top notch advertising firm as Grant Advertising, DYR, J. Walter Thompson, Pan Pacific, Ace Compton and Basic Advertising. She was working with McCann-Erickson before she finally hung up her advertising gloves in 1988.
In her works, Velasco’s women are at once sensual, flirtatious, sometimes coy or meditative but always strong in character. Interestingly, although her women are painted in a determined, self assured manner, they remain undeniably feminine. Her works have been auctioned successfully thrice at Sotheby’s, twice at Larasati and once at Masterpiece auctions.
For Dominic Rubio, Old Asia, is a welcome opportunity to exhibit his works inspired by an Asia of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century. An avid history buff and a person who loves to study the culture of various nations and peoples, Rubio found it most challenging to depict in his works the nostalgia and romanticism of that era while providing them with a modern sensibility and contemporary interpretation.
“It must have been very interesting to walk the streets of any Asian capital during the 19th century where people from various nationalities and countries would be walking around mingling with each other in their unique costumes.” In his paintings, Rubio would combine various peoples in different combinations. In A Commercial District in Old Asia he has a distinguished Chinese couple walking with their young child together with Malays, Muslims or even Japanese couples walking on the same street of Old Singapore. In the painting A Park Somewhere in Old Asia there is a Japanese couple, a young Chinese lady, a Filipina woman and her child and a Muslim boy strolling by the waterfront.
Rubio has been inspired to paint the men and women at the turn-of the century depicting faces and figures from the same period and milieu, the quintessential symbol of innocence and naivete at a time of great socio-political change. His subjects with long craning necks suggest no less than peoples of various cultures with much to be proud of thanks to their rich culture and heritage.
Velasco and Rubio’s show run until June 21. |
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A Park Somewhere in Old Asia
Oil on Canvas 36 x 60 in
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Old Asia Series
Oil on Canvas 36 x 60 in
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Old Asia (Manila 1884)
Oil on Canvas 32 x 54 in
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Red Umbrella
Oil on Canvas 36 x 36 in
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Vietnamese Ladies
Oil on Canvas 36 x 36 in
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Monk Boys
Oil on Canvas 40 x 30 in
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Vietnamese Canoe
Oil on Canvas 40 x 30 in
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Warlord
Oil on Canvas 30 x 24 in
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Buffalo Ride
Oil on Canvas 30 x 24 in
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Woman and Buffalo
Oil on Canvas 30 x 24 in
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