About the Event
As its first major show opening art year 2019, Galerie Joaquin presents international based Filipino contemporary visual artist Gilbert Semillano’s The Realm Chronicles at Galerie Joaquin Podium on January 8, 2019.
As a sequel to The Mystic Realm in 2014 at Galerie Stephanie, Semillano fortifies his long-term project of scene making and storytelling by introducing us to the main and supporting characters of his magical realm at Galerie Joaquin. The gallery is transformed into a microcosm of Semillano’s discovery, encasement, and annotations of these majestic and mystical beings. Reflexively and attentively, the characters in their respective landscapes are enumerations of the artist’s different temperaments as he eases to and from the surreal dimensions, shifting and habitating as a top advertising man in the Middle East, an acclaimed disc jockey, a commercial space designer, and a family man.
The Realm Chronicles is perhaps Semillano’s 2019 greenhouse report of species that thrived (and are still thriving) in his imagination over the years. Obviously warm yet stippled with a noir atmosphere, the characters rely on full saturation, high contrast and obscure figurations to capture individual identity. The pictorial spaces are full of details, and clean iconographic permutations are always for sighting, regardless of our own notions of histories or myths. According to the artist, the creatures could solely be endangered by his fear of not being able to paint them. The characters seemingly are aware of Semillano’s studio sessions with them, as we sense the renaissance and baroque techniques of framing “sitters”.
Through the artist-centric initiative of Galerie Joaquin, the project as consciously operated and physicalized by Semillano (through the exhibition design, extended writings, and presentation of other paraphernalia) immerses his audience in the here and now among the specimens and characters of the realm, with the hopes of becoming part of the chronicling itself.
The Realm Chronicles will be on view from January 8 to 17, 2019, with the Artist Reception scheduled on Tuesday, January 8, 6PM at Galerie Joaquin, located at Level 3 of The Podium, ADB Avenue, Ortigas Center, Mandaluyong City. For more information, please call +632-634-7954 or email podium.galeriejoaquin@gmail.com.