"Womb to Tomb"

CEBU, Philippines - There are many epigrams linked to the act of defining art. One of the most popular goes something like: "There is no such thing as art - only artists."

"Womb to Tomb" - the featured art exhibition of Canvas Bistro Bar & Gallery at The Terraces in Ayala Center Cebu - proves that the saying holds a significant and veritable modicum of truth, in how it takes a look at the different creative processes that happens in an artist's mind - touching up on the importance of studies, the value of technique, and the compelling nuances and quirks that are inherent in serious creative business.

Putting together more than 20 works made by the "Tuslob Buwa" visual art collective, the show bears a multi-faceted quality that can't exactly be described as candid or formal - but the idea of what results from being capricious with the dangers of routine does begin to describe its ins and outs.

Steering clear from the contemporary art scene's melodramatic visual phraseology, the works of Evan Bejec, Ritchie Quijano and Lucilo Sagayno - the members of "Tuslob Buwa" - bare the true "bravado" artists are liable to succumb to in their creative zeal - from experiencing the sensation of running at high velocities yet not really moving, to realizing how being bored can be a luxury when at the peak of one's productive creative fits.

Magnifying basic premises to radical textures and tones, the show's presented pieces are already finessing even before any finesse is necessary, just as they proffer their creators' respective creative dictions.

But beyond perspectives, contours, colors and hues, the exhibit's triumph lies in how it stirs and shifts the breeze that wafts the wings of an artist to flight - saying something about how true artists will always yearn to fly, from their birth to their end.

"Womb to Tomb" runs until August 10. (FREEMAN)