“Forever Young”

CEBU, Philippines – There’s an alluring affirmation in the exhibit “Forever Young” which harps on the beauty and nature of seasons, seasonal shifts and their cyclical passing.

Presented by Cebu Artists Inc. as its year-ending show for 2016, the exhibit features artworks made by Tina Marie Gandionco, Adelaida Javier, Mayleen Layco and Marlou Velasquez – talents who are finding themselves anew in the visual arts space.

Ongoing at the 3rd level Paseo Marina of the Ayala Center Cebu, the exhibit mainly showcases landscapes, flowerscapes and still lifes – pieces which exalt the beauty of life’s natural shifts and shuffles; all rendered in adherence to the principles and techniques of traditional and contemporary fine art making.

By drawing inspiration from nature and the variety of creative techniques that populate the modern and contemporary arts sphere, the show encapsulates visual art’s propensity for timelessness – rendering the “walang forever” view inept, if not downright crap.

To certain effect, “Forever Young” is a fitting complement to an underappreciated song by award-winning singer-songwriter Billy Joel. Titled “Keeping the Faith” and released in 1983, the divining dictum of the song and the exhibit can be summed-up in the line – “The good old days weren’t always good, and tomorrow isn’t as bad as it seems.”

Both the song and the exhibit enthuse that “youth” is not only qualified and quantified by tallies and counts of years, underscoring how natural changes gently take their time in making themselves known; altering old landscapes to novel peripheries before anyone could say anything about the state of forever known as change. (FREEMAN)