“HULAG”

“HULAG” Group Show of the Kasikasi Art Association of Tacloban

4-18 November 2011

PhilamLife Building Lobby, U.N. Ave., Ermita, Manila

Artists from the provinces remain largely unheard of even if they are just as productive, hardworking and talented as their Manila counterparts. “Hulag,” a Waray word that describes a fish’s splashing movement up to the water surface to take in air, is a modest attempt by a group of Tacloban/Leyte-based artists to make its artmaking efforts felt in the big city. In this show, the artists present works in different media that bear images, scenes and issues in their culture and community or broadly explore themes that inspire pure creative expression.

Surely this exhibit may not produce a big splash in the urban art landscape but it may succeed in issuing a firm statement that art is alive and vibrant even in places far removed from the glare of publicity and big sponsors usually concentrated in urban centers. In those localities – in this particular case Leyte - artists continue to toil, as this show demonstrates, despite the daunting challenges that come with their chosen passion. More than anything else, the pursuit of art has become its own reward. The occasional foray to the big city – their second – is both a chance to share what they have made and a moment to inhale fresh ideas and inspirations from a different environment and heartening encouragement from a metropolitan audience.

The participating artists, all members of the KasiKasi Art Association of Tacloban, are:

Rico Palacio

Dante Enage

Archie Prisno

Crispin Asensi

Raul Agner

Bebot Flandez

Billy Pomida

Ernie Ybañez

Jasmine Diaz

The group regularly exhibits in Tacloban and is considered the most active art group in that part of the Visayas. Individually and as a group, the artists have also joined shows in Calbayog, Ormoc, Cebu, Boracay, Iloilo, Bohol, Malaysia, and Japan. -rda