“Balay-Balay”

CEBU, Philippines - One doesn’t need to have a PhD in anthropology to know that there is a difference between a “house” and a “home” – a differentiation that’s not merely semantics, but more about the constant politicking between life’s prevailing realities and its supposed ideals.

This harmonization, albeit inversely, blankets the exhibit “Balay-Balay,” the month’s featured show of Qube Gallery at The Crossroads in Banilad.

Top-billed by the works of Cebuano contemporary artist Mark “Kidlat” Copino, the show is mainly a telling of what the artist sees as lifescapes that are worth the attention – ‘stories’ that relate contradictions that either spay or bolster the ideal to become actual realities.

Working with stencils and threshold-rendered forms, in this show the artist plays with the concept of deconstruction, a treatment which tasks viewers to deconstruct a work for it to be complete, allowing them to discern and complete a story by filling the gaps of its “hidden years.”

Made dynamic by the exhibiting artist’s take on the surrealist style (which is carried out by infusing surrealism’s classic marks with the staples of neo-expressionism and the pop art movement), “Balay-Balay” feature pieces that are telling of the start and the ending of a tale.

To a certain extent, the exhibit’s featured works shear out the nostalgic fondness that’s typically tied with fond memories of growing up – presenting these as the ethereal foundations that build up personas by showing how one can lose or find oneself in the journey from the cradle to the grave. (FREEMAN)