This year’s“ Tubò Art Fair ”

CEBU, Philippines — This year’s holding of the annual “Tubò Art Fair” was one for the books, what with over a thousand art lovers drawn to the highlights and activities of its three-day run.

Organized by the Arts Council of Cebu Foundation with the support of the Ayala Center Cebu, the fair (from September 13 to 15 at the Activity Center of the Ayala Center Cebu) had more than 60 exhibiting artists and galleries based in different parts of the Visayas showcase a wide range of illustrations, paintings and sculptures.

Notably standout in the event was the way it showed how the region’s talents are taking a novel approach in the making of works, where the pieces captured the aura and allure subjects without being overly-literal.

Though not bereft of pieces whose thematic moorings fall into the old school or academic painting techniques, the fair’s main new-school-meets-old-school character distinguished it from previous art fairs in Cebu.  In this recent art, elements of classic art were rendered along current creative trends.

Collectively, the pieces presented in this year’s “Tubò Art Fair” proved that in as much as the Visayas region’s talents are known throughout the country for richly-detailed narrative painting techniques, this reputation doesn’t mean that Visayan artists aren’t capable of contemporary art’s future-forward concepts.