Nicole Sy-Coson, Paolo Vinluan, and Liv Romualdez-Vinluan showcase their masterpieces at the Finale Art File.

Contemplating the Square by Paolo Vinluan

Three contemporary Filipino artists of this generation showcased their masterpieces in all three galleries of the premier art institution, Finale Art File, at the La Fuerza Compound, Makati City. From August 7 to 30 the monotype prints by Nicole Sy-Coson and paintings by Paolo Vinluan and Liv Romualdez-Vinluan will be on view, presenting to art connoisseurs and aficionados their visions and interpretations of ethereal and temporal motions and fluidity.

Exhibited as three separate shows, Liv Vinluan’s series of paintings entitled, The Savage Sea, is at the Tall Gallery of the warehouse. Nicole Sy-Coson’s monotype prints, Untitled, are at the Upstairs Gallery, installed in the middle of the mezzanine. Paolo Vinluan’s third entry to his Block series entitled, Block: New Paintings, is at Video Room beside the Upstairs Gallery.

 

Untitled by Nicole Sy-Coson

Using metal plates coated in blank ink and then wiped with a cotton-like medium, Coson’s series of “spirit captures” are monotype prints of a ghost-like form suggesting movement and shifts of vision. With this refraction of a recognizable image, Coson’s intention of leaving the viewer with unsettled nervousness is very much evident. True to its name, Coson gives the viewers the freedom to title each portrait according to the images they see.

Nicole Sy-Coson with her grandmother Felicidad Tan-Sy, and Evita Sarenas with the Machina in the background

By drawing attention to the subjective process of seeing, Coson engages in small acts of introspection into the very nature of representation.

 

Block: New Paintings by Paolo Vinluan

Paolo Vinluan's Sisyphus II

Following his Block series, Paolo Vinluan unpacks the animation images presented in the previous video installation exhibited in Finale last December. Through the media of painting, Vinluan draws out the connections between the visual image and narrative sequence inspired by the myth of Sisyphus, who was cursed to repeatedly roll a boulder up a mountain. Focusing on three main forms—the human figure, the sphere, and the cube—Vinluan tries to capture the sense of continuous motion and transition by combining surface, structure, and story in this series of paintings.

 

The Savage Sea by L.R. Vinluan


Liv Romualdez-Vinluan with The Undulating Sea (triptych) in the background

In this panorama of rolling waves is the story of a metaphorical body floating on another body—a vessel in the midst of deep, tempestuous, and unpredictable waters. Liv Vinluan’s composition presents the possibility of non-linear chronology. As the viewer normally looks from left to right, the series starts with a small portrait of bloodied water and a sinking ship, which ironically concludes the succeeding paintings of the vessel fighting over a sea serpent in the midst of the storm.

Like the two other exhibitions, Liv Vinluan’s The Savage Sea tells about navigation, voyage, and transportation, from one place to another in various imaginable forms of vessel and in endless possibilities of motion. Fragmented, patched, and fissured, they still end up whole and intact when they reach their destination.

Evita Sarenas and Michel-Stanislas Villar

Tessie Sy-Coson and Senator Loren Legarda posing with Nicole Sy-Coson's Untitled

Finale Art File was established in 1983 and is managed by Evita Sarenas, one of its three founders, and Sylvia Gascon. Notable guests graced the opening of the three exhibitions—Hans Sy, Sen. Loren Legarda, Michel-Stanislas Villar, and Tessie Sy-Coson.

 

Finale Art File, Warehouse 17, La Fuerza Compound, Chino Roces Avenue (Pason Tamo Ext.), Makati City, +632.813.2310