Sentro Leona Galeria Museo

Pagbati sa Ika-68 na Kaarawan ni Manlilikha ng Bayan Barbara Ofong!

Barbara Kibed Ofong
T’boli
2023 Manlilikha ng Bayan for Textile Weaving

Continuously producing the highest possible quality of T’nalak for more than 50 years, Bo’i Barbara’s remarkable artistry and knowledge is spiritually guided through her “ties” with Fu Dalu, the guardian spirit of abaca. As a dreamweaver, she has artistically expressed T’boli cosmology, human relationships, and reverence to natural surroundings through more than 90 patterns in her weaving while incorporating the use of dyes derived from nature.

Bo’i Barbara’s extraordinary visual memory and mastery of the abaca, expressed in each singular and complex composition in T’nalak, carries with it a profound connection to their T’boli homeland Lake Sebu, and their T’boli universe where there reside the T’boli spirits and generations of weavers through time.

Infant Jesus Academy in Marikina, Antipolo, and Kalibo. The Alumni with Fine Arts or Multi-media Arts backgrounds might be interested in this.

Richard MacDonald had a gallery with his beautiful sculptures at the Ghiradelli Square in Fisherman's Wharf at San Francisco, California. Everytime I visited San Fo, I would drop by the gallery until COVID happened. I just don't know whether it survived the Pandemic though. Just amazing works there.

VISITING THE BLACK MADONNA OF MONTSERRAT

When we were in Barcelona just last week with my wife Alma, she suddenly insisted that we visit Montserrat Cathedral, a Benedictine Abbey known for hosting the miraculous Black Madonna, a Romanesque sculpture of The Blessed Mother Mary with Jesus Christ cloaked in gold.

I waa apprehensive about the travel time because I thought it was three hours away. But because it was a holiday and we hired a cab, the travel time to the Montserrat enclave took us over an hour. The travel was worth it.

When we arrived there, several vendors of cheese, honey and other food and souvenir items greeted us in makeshift tents. A gorgeous, young, blonde Catalan lady even greeted us in Tagalog, mouthing sensual language that made me blush. After all, she was a Caucasian whom we did not expect to understand Tagalog, much less speak with some vulgar undertones. She must have been dealing with a lot of Filipino cooks and chefs, whose services are in demand in Spain, no wonder Spanish food has become extremely tasty, flavoured and delicious to which Filipinos are accustomed.

Nevertheless, the granite mountains and carved hills of Montserrat look like the work of some great Divine, gigantic artist. It is in these mountains which the Benedictine cathedral, chapels, museum, and monasteries have been seemingly carved from or sculpted into.

At our designated tour time, we were led into the Throne Room of The Black Madonna. We passed through relief art painted and carved into the walls of the corridors and gates and huge grilled doors. It was mesmerising.

We were further awed by the huge, life-size Madonna seated on her throne with the Infant Jesus on her lap. The wooden sculpture was enclosed in circular glass. This whole area could be seen from inside the cathedral as the Throne Room appears at the top of the altar soaring near the high Gothic carved arched ceilings. We are humbled.

This pilgrimage site has a hotel for guests to stay overnight for retreats, reflections, masses. Just beautiful and so worth visiting. It has a cafeteria which offers affordable food, sandwiches and refreshments as well as a souvenir shop with dazzling replicas of the Black Madonna. We were tempted to purchase one huge life-sized sculpture worth 6 to 7 thousand euros. But I would not know how to carry that 30 kilo sculpture or even ship it to the Philippines. So I just bought a light, hand sized resin replica costing six euros. Oh well!

At any rate, I do hope I can visit The Black Madonna again, this time with my religious intentions sufficiently and comprehensively articulated seeking for her intervention with regard to mine and the lives of my loved ones.

Reign high above Blessed Mother. Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam. In Omnibus, Amare et Servire Domino.

- Eric HJ Mallonga

'Morning Light' (a 1989 lithograph on paper) by Senju Hiroshi (千住博, born 1958), a contemporary Japanese Nihonga (日本画) painter from Tokyo (東京).

Beautiful Japanese art print.

'Rising Moon' (月上る), 2015, by Ōtsu/Ohtsu Kazuyuki (大津一幸, born 1935), a contemporary Japanese sōsaku-hanga (創作版画, creative prints) artist from Isesaki (伊勢崎市), Gunma Prefecture (群馬県).

Sheet size (h x w): 61.5 × 41.5 cm.
Edition size: 100.

Wow! An unusual painting from Vincent Van Gogh that digresses from his usual landscape art. Bravo!

Vincent Van Gogh, The Angel (after Rembrandt), 1889

Wow. Film Concept Designer and Artist Sun Jian's works are something to behold. His genre is something to be considered by Master Artists in weaving a tale or a story to their art works. A figurative painting need not be static or stationary. It can be futuristic and visionary; it can evoke narratives of universal destruction or of re-engineering a world. It can be transformative and transcendental.

Get ready to BANG again! 💥

Arte Bettina presents NUT ART (Ke Yuzhen Nut)!
Watch out for his exclusive works only at The Manila'Bang Show 2023!

December 7 to 10, 2023
Festival Mall, East Wing (Civic Drive)

Stay tuned for more info!

For inquiries and viewing appointments:
📱 09052696095 | 📞 (02) 7004 3209
📧 [email protected]
📍 Arte Bettina, 3rd Level, Greenbelt 5, Makati City

SILHOUETTE ART WORKSHOP

On 26 August 2023, Sentro Leona Galeria Museo is sponsoring a Silhouette Art Workshop for the wards of Meritxell Children's World Foundation, to be conducted by Architect Julian Anthony "Pboy" Yballe. The orphans shall be assisted by their Big Brothers and Big Sisters from the Senior High School of Infant Jesus Academy Marikina.

We promote joint workshops where our SHS students get to be more responsible, empathetic, and compassionate to the younger students, who are less fortunate with regard to their birth circumstances. IJA Alumni artists are also invited to participate in the Big Brother Big Sister program. These workshops are under the auspices of Sunshine de Leon and Polly Shih Brandsmeyer.

An expressionist, Architect Pboy has mastered two art forms: First, the movement of sea tides, which he has captured in his exhibition series "Be Water, My Friend."

Second, he has mastered the art of silhouette painting. In his series of silhouette art, his environs are composed of background colours, which enhance the actions of the silhouette figures in the paintings, like samurais swordfighting with ultimately only one survivor, Buddhas in profound meditation, or horsemen crusaders galloping to their certain death.

For this particular art workshop, we shall be holding this at our regular venue at CFM Hall in IJA Ordonez Campus. You may enter through either the Ordonez Ave. entrance gate or the SW Ipil St. back entrance gate.

Each participant shall be using at least ten bond paper sized vellum boards, acrylic paints of all colors, paintbrushes, paint containers, scissors, lots of scratch paper for the silhouette cut-outs, and black pentel pens or markers for coloring the silhouettes.

To Batang Meritxell and IJA SHS Arts and Design students, our Art Outreach or Artreach program has began. We need to go through these art workshops as part of our Art Immersion or Artmersion phase to become ultimately Art Advocates or Artvocates.

Mabuhay tayong lahat. Mabuhay kayong mga Tagapagtaguyod ng Sining at Kultura sa bansa. Mabuhay ang Infant Jesus Academy. Mabuhay ang Meritxell Children's World Foundation.

'Beauty with a fan and a Crescent Moon' by Tsuruta Ichiro (鶴田一郎, born 1954), a contemporary Nihonga (Japanese-style) painter, specialising in bijinga (美人画) pictures of beautiful women, from Kumamoto Prefecture (熊本県) on the Japanese island of Kyūshū (九州).

Beautiful wall dividers for hanging paintings in the National Museum. Excellent.

Detailed Miniature Model By .m.eid [IG] 🤎

Humpback Whale grabbing some air.