EXHIBITION NOTES by Tin Palattao

The artists come from a diverse locality, past or current, that shape their creative output. What binds these women artists is learning and practicing printmaking along with each individual’s current artmaking that each has been pursuing for years. For some of us, living in the province gives us the chance to utilize what grows in our surroundings. By making direct impressions of what’s within our reach, these botanical impressions offer a glimpse of another environment.

As an educator in the Visayas region, Irma Lacorte finds herself sourcing alternative materials to teach basic printmaking. In exploring the art of image-making, Tin Palattao began her practice using botanical objects found in her garden. Irma and Tin continue to share/introduce printmaking to other interested artists. Des Pirinsesa, a graduating Fine Arts student, joined them in an online basic relief printmaking workshop via Zoom with Negros Occidental-based printmaker Angela Silva in January 2021. On the Saturdays thereafter, the group met in a garden studio in Valencia, Negros Oriental, to make more prints. Visual artist Mia Angela followed soon after. Irma and Tin introduced printmaking to more visual artists, Ched de Gala and photographer Little Wing Luna, both friends from Metro Manila who came to their home/studio in Dumaguete.

In this project, these women artists aim to demonstrate the flexibility of printmaking and its meditative process that encourages the printmaker to be mindful of the physical space they are in. The texture and color of objects can be subtle or bold, depending on the available organic materials in their environment. Mindfulness comes with choosing common wild flowers we tend to ignore. What do we see? What do we choose to look at, to view, to observe? What pushes us to make these visible?