Angelo Magno
One by One
A group exhibition
Ayala Museum, December 2003
Faces, Phases, Feelings
by Angelo Magno
I write poetry and playwrights as a means of expression. Both are influenced by my experiences in theater and creative writing during my undergraduate course. Drawing and writing have their similarities . Drawing is the closest artistic process I can associate to writing I have been using oil pastels and pencils as coloring mediums every time I wanted to draw or just doodle when dealing with my artist block. We use pencil and paper in both conventional writing and drawing. I also paint with acrylic and oil but I am more comfortable in drawing because it is the fastest way I can express an idea visually. I would like to relate my work to the process of playwriting. In playwriting we create characters. We command what the characters do, we resolve their problems. We create their lives, the world they live in. Just like making a character sketch, I would be drawing multiple images of faces to cover up a specific area or site. Each face would stand for a certain character. Filling up a specific site with drawings of faces would create an overwhelming experience for the viewer. I would like to show the congestions happening in the metro during our present time. The myths of modernity and urban life as compared to a masquerade. They would represent individuals which are not classified by gender but as emotional beings in this drama of life. The challenge in my study is to create a consistent style in my drawings to fill a specific environment order to create a different spatial experience.
Grace and Gestures
First solo exhibition
Art Elements Asian Gallery, December 2004
Ikebana Series
by Angelo Magno
Drawing is the nearest discipline I can relate to writing. We use the same materials such as paper and pencil in drawing and in writing. Sometimes we spontaneously write what is on our mind. This can be in the form of phrases, sentences or poetry. Poetry being one of the most disciplined but ironically one of the most expressive forms of writing.
The process I have incorporated in this series is similar to creating poetry and writing by using our stream of consciousness and by the process of automatic writing. We write what is on our mind at the moment. In this case, we draw what we feel at the moment. These drawings seem to form some kind of foreign texts. Texts that may mean nothing at all but the movement of the lines convey intense emotions.
I call this as the Ikebana series since the forms created by the impulse of drawing are similar to Ikebana arrangements. In the same way the creation has a touch of restrain. I did not fill the compositions with colors but attempted to create minimal compositions using oil pastel and pencil on paper.
“The Zen master merely says: act and don't worry about it; what you do may be right or wrong, neither is bad. That is, from the universal point of view there is no right and wrong: these are values superimposed by society--the universe makes no distinctions or categories” – Zen Buddhism
Grace and Gestures
One looks at the work collected in Angelo Magno’s Grace and Gestures and sees an aesthetic flight.
The softest point of the pencil draws dark lines that seem to blur, but later turns into light,
filling the great white space-our feelings floating in the void.
Matched with the burst of the oil pastel, each flower burns and savors its moment. That is how the
artist renders his impression of beauty: each blooming is also an homage to all that is temporal and
painful. The more that one is attached, the more one suffers. Our eyes hold unshed tears.
There is a convergence of influences in this exhibition, all of which are positional and Japanese. They
range from ikebana (the art of flower arrangement), haiku (traditional poetry of three, measured lines), zendo (way of meditation), chinkon-koshin undo (the unity of mind and body).
Moreover, the artist is no stranger to the practice of the literary arts. He has used pencil and paper to draw the faintest element, which in writing could sometimes remain unexpressed, being the province
of the visual arts.
Finally, Angelo Magno has done his great duty of presenting the consolations of both writing and
drawing. Although they may be two different disciplines, two solitary acts that need to be sustained
in one’s stream of consciousness, he keeps his promise and fulfills it, showing us elegant poetry.
-Jaime Dasca Doble
Angelo Magno is a graduate of BA Art Studies from the University of the Philippines, Diliman Quezon City. He is now taking his Master in Fine Arts at the UP College of Fine Arts.
Daing, Bulong, Dasal
An installation by Angelo Magno
UP College of Arts and Letters, Galleria II, April 2005
Daing, Bulong, Dasal depicts the individual intrapersonal and interpersonal communication of a variety of people in a site of worship after the celebration of the Ash Wednesday mass. Portraits are used to represent individuals which are present in the site of worship. The characters in the work have their own conflicts to confess and resolve It is an art work that explores the human psyche, a religious event that deals with penance, and an exploration on narrativity using different mediums such as portrait drawings, found objects and tarot cards through the genre of installation art.
The installation would like to investigate the human psyche and our concept of the self. The site of worship is an interesting space to explore the dynamics of communicating through ourselves by means of prayer.
Ash Wednesday is the start of the season of Lent. This is a time when people begin their process of spiritual cleansing for the coming holy week. It is a time of penance. The portraits or characters have their own utterance or confession of conflicts and a suggestion for change. It also deals with the concept of impermanence of life. This is reminded in the saying “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” It also deals with the temporality of time and the desire to change for the better as time goes by. People need to learn from the past, cease the present, and improve for the future.
Each drawing is also supported by a tarot card which is installed in the work. . The artist would like to relate the (portraits) characters to archetypes found in the Osho Zen tarot. might be unclear about what those thoughts and feelings are. This type of tarot is usually used for meditation, to turn the individuals attention away from outside events and find a new clarity of understanding about what is in their “inner self.” The artist also attempts to build a visual narrative using the Osho Zen tarots with the portraits for a stronger visual imagery.
The artist would also like to explore the possibility of creating a different space within a site.
“These are places that do exist and that are formed in the very founding of society - which are something like counter-sites, a kind of effectively enacted utopia in which the real sites, all the other real sites that can be found within the culture, are simultaneously represented, contested, and inverted. Places of this kind are outside of all places, even though it may be possible to indicate their location in reality. Because these places are absolutely different from all the sites that they reflect and speak about, I shall call them, by way of contrast to utopias, heterotopias”
---Michel Foucault
Fragments of objects in the site of worship also explores our sense of the real. What makes us believe that this is a place of worship? Do the objects installed in the space present or signify what we think they actually represent? Is it really a site of worship? A representation of a site of worship? Or a different site altogether? A theatrical space? A heterotopia?
The artist would like to explore the possibility of involving the observer as part of the creation of the narrative within the work of art. Since the artwork is not based on a certain text, there is ambiguity in the structure of the narrative. The artist provides the setting (the site of worship) and the drawings signifying the characters for the narrative, the observer’s reaction and interpretation on the work would create the narrative or one of the narratives in the work. By participating, the observer in a way also explores his persona through observing and participating in a work with deals the exploration of the human psyche.
INtroSpection
A group exhibition curated by Ambie Abaňo
Alliance Francaise de Manile, April 2005
“There is no screen that blocks me from the sight of my own face. Like any other living creature, I am not designed with the vantage to see my own face in person. Yet, I call it mine. It is the face by which I am recognized by the world outside. The image of which appears in their mental monitor at the mention of my name. The part of my physical being that I am first identified for. The portal of my observable reality. Nobody else but I can claim, yet only I shall never actually see.”
Other notions extend to disregarding completely, referencing to the physical is in none objective images aptly entitled “self-portrait”. In such cases, how does an artist see himself? Where is the mental picture derived from? Discussions and debates on issues on interpretation and reading of self-portraits continue to further widen the scope of engagement. But, although so much delved into, one thing stays the same—the source and center of all self-portraiture is the self of the maker. Thus, whatever output is produced, notions he holds, whatever medium he uses, whatever output is produced, at some point, one undergoes, whether consciously or sub-consciously, a process of introspection. a looking into oneself, a self-examination, an examination that includes one’s sensory and perceptual experience especially undertaken under controlled conditions of experiment.
The collection is a survey of artists’ construct of “himself”. It is hoped that the exhibit will incite the viewer to examine himself and question his own notion of “self”
------ Ambie Abaňo
MANILA 2005
Arta ala Carte
A group exhibition
SM Megamall Art Center, May 2005
Urbanscape Series
by Angelo Magno
This series was inspired by structures, facades and spaces that I have seen during my rounds in Manila. Most of the compositions are done in bold colors because of my orientation with the dominant colors during the changing times of the day. Dark blue for dawn, bright blue at noon, yellow to red at twilight. My concern is not on forming representational images of objects but to create bold works through the interaction of colors and texture to create an interesting planar composition.
“Color Impressions” perhaps would be a more appropriate term to use. I would like to create compositions which depict different sites or places recalled from memory inspired by the colors captured during the different times of the day.
Dala-Dalang Dalangin (Embodied Prayers) Drawing Installation
Cultural Center of the Philippines, March 13 - April 26, 2006
I have been exposed to the discipline of creative writing, theater and painting.
Creative writing deals with texts in order to present a narrative. Theater deals with space and performance and drawing deals with the creation of two dimensional images.
Having been nurtured in a culture with a strong sense of religiosity, I have used the rituals of prayer and worship to express the different issues that affect the psyche of various individuals.
In Dala-dalang Dalangin, I have used drawings as a tool to create a different visual experience on a given space. The gallery is transformed into a representation of a site of worship where multiple drawings of faces are installed. These faces have transpired from the encountered individuals at various places and events. Their characters where later adopted and transcribed as individuals praying, chanting their concerns in the site of worship. Their prayers range from the philosophical to the mundane expressing the views of the different individuals gathered inside the place of worship. Why do we pray? To whom do we pray? What do we discover within ourselves while praying? These are some questions that arise when we submit ourselves to the process of praying. I relate the place of worship to a comfort zone where one can meditate and reflect on one’s internal conflicts.
The gallery is also transformed into a theatrical space and a heterotopia where the viewer is invited to be a part of the whole work and create narratives from the given elements- a juxtapose between a site of worship and at the same time a gallery space. These conceptual framework of space may be further explained from the excerpt of Michel Foucault:
“These are places that do exist and that are formed in the very founding of society - which are something like counter-sites, a kind of effectively enacted utopia in which the real sites, all the other real sites that can be found within the culture, are simultaneously represented, contested, and inverted. Places of this kind are outside of all places, even though it may be possible to indicate their location in reality. Because these places are absolutely different from all the sites that they reflect and speak about, I shall call them, by way of contrast to utopias, heterotopias”
I hope the exhibition would inspire the viewer to explore his own persona through observing and interpreting the different visual elements in the installation.
- Angelo V. Magno