'High Spirit' and women's strength

“High Spirit”, the art exhibition celebrates the centennial anniversary of the College of the Holy Spirit (CHS), Mendiola, Manila. Fifteen CHS women alumnae participate with their art to be viewed at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) Little Theater lobby and second floor hallway Feb. 1-March 27. Free viewing is open daily from Tuesdays to Sundays,  9 a.m.-6 p.m., and during theater performance intermission. 

Imelda Cajipe Endaya, CCP Centennial Honors for the Arts and CCP Thirteen Artists awardee,  together with New York-based printmaker and Pollack-Krasner grantee Lenore RS Lim, gathered their works and asked artist colleagues from different parts of the world to form this collection to express gratitude to their school whom they credit for the strength of the women alumnae’s inner formation.  

"Simple Abundance," Lenore RS Lim

"Kasibulan," Imelda Cajipe Endaya

From Mallorca, Spain, Aurora Go Bio Shakespeare, industrial and graphic designer, participates with a series of colorful abstract floral forms that symbolize empowered femininity. From Dubai, Chi Panistante, another graphic designer, interprets with a strong Biblical perspective the dynamism of daily life in the Arab state through her disciplined circular compositions.

"Tashish," Chi Panistante

"Angel wings flight," Aurora Go Bio Shakespeare

"Praying for What's Left," Mimi Tecson

From New Jersey, painter and children’s book illustrator Athena Santos Magcase Lopez, presents her landmark illustrations for “The Magic Jeepney” and a mixed media collage “This is Betty Makoni” about the founder of the Girl Child Network in Zimbabwe. Returning from a three-month art residency in Yokohama, Japan, Mimi Tecson shows her new series of pop culture assemblages in glass jars, exploring the connections between her personal emotions and memory. 

"Betty Makoni," Athena Santos Magcase

"Laguna de Bombon," Rhoda Recto

"Ladies of the mountain," Emi Masigan Mercado

"Now and lifetimes ago," Celine Borromeo

"Magkasama sa dagat," Rona Buenaseda Chua

 UST Prof. Rhoda Recto uses watercolors in the "Letras y Figuras" genre to interpret the poems on Batangas and Quezon landscapes written by the nationalist statesman Claro M. Recto. Emi Masigan Mercado, theater director, art educator and portraitist,  exhibits her colorful, cheery paintings of women. Celine G. Borromeo, CHS professor, interior designer, graphic artist and writer, exhibits her book illustrations “For Now and Lifetimes Ago” and “Circles with Open Ends.” Rona Buenaseda-Chua, art teacher and owner of Rona’s Art Center, exhibits her delicate pencil and watercolor paintings of fishes in water and still lifes in her best naturalist style. 

"Tagaytay Interior," Elaine Ongpin Herbosa

"La amistad es el vino de la vida," Maria Antonia Gonzalez-Cruz

"Beauty in the eye of beholder," Tiffany Ty

"Marsh," Gracia Gargantiel

Elaine Ongpin Herbosa, stocks and insurance marketer, who reinvented herself to become plein-air painter and owner of the gallery L’Arc en Ciel, shows her delightful oil on canvas paintings of interiors and still life. Spanish teacher Maria Antonia Gonzalez-Cruz first turned to calligraphic painting as a stroke patient’s therapy, and has created a collection of remarkable Chinese paintings. Junior executive Tiffany Elaine Ty exhibits her digital art “Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder”.  “High Spirit” also honors Maria Gracia Gargantiel of the Manila Cultural Office and Rosita Tayag Natividad of the New York University. Gargantiel died in 2010; her pastel paintings of lush marshes and waters were lent to the exhibition by her family.  Tayag- Natividad, who had arranged that her early black-and-white lithographs be exhibited, died at age 73.

“High Spirit” represents the spirit of excellence in various styles and modes of articulation. The pictures at the exhibition are meant to inspire viewers into looking at art making as a creative, humanly integrative process. The CCP is on Roxas Blvd., Manila.