Earth Warriors
By Katrina Pascual

IN the face of mankind’s continuing disregard of the environmental issues that threaten our collective future, Mother Earth finds another ally in her monumental battle for conservation and preservation.
       Armed with their visual-art materials, Earth Art members take “ecological preservation and protection” to the grassroots: bringing their art to the marketplace, schools and right inside the hubbub of dump-site communities to raise environmental consciousness and to conduct recycled and junk-art workshops.
       Formed in April, Earth Art launches the group via the monthlong exhibit Re-Inhabitation, which is set to open on June 9 at Stairway Gallery, Kamuning, Quezon City, just in time for the World Environment Month celebration.
       “This is one way of defining an artist’s purpose,” says painter, writer and production designer Vic Dabao, one of the seven core Earth Art members—Leo Meneses, Zaldy Arbozo, Nick Aranda, Fritz Silorio, Teddy Santos, Armida Fransisco and Dabao—who initially practiced their craft during regular sessions at the Arroceros Forest Park in Manila.
       Having witnessed the cementing and “padlocking” of the Arroceros Park and, worse, the cutting down of its century-old trees, the group is pursuing a consciousness campaign through its art on canvas, bottles inked with poetry, sculpture and installation art that uses dried leaves.
       Core group coordinator Arbozo, dabbling in contemporary interpretations of Filipino tribal art since 1990, will be showing artworks on marine life and endangered species. Aranda, who is an 85-year-old senior artist and photographer, specializes in oil painting, while Santos communicates through watercolors. Marikina-born artist Luis Gabriel, also doing social work as a street educator teaching children recycling and card-making lessons, will be exhibiting his water-based paintings in an “insect eye view,” zooming into a butterfly’s callow body parts.
       Adhering to the virtue of the 3Rs—reuse, reduce, recycle—young Davao del Norte-bred artist Jezir Lascuña will explore junk art that includes used bottles and discarded toilets.
       Re-Inhabitation will also feature the works from Lyndon Joseph Susi, Eric Guttierez, Arman Gutering, Noel Mahilum, Ria Garcia and other invited artists, all of which will be part of an annual ecological campaign with the general call “Act Now.” “Nature is the sole teacher of the arts, even creating its own visual artworks—the perfect cone, the flow of the river,” reflects painter and sculptor Froilan Peñaflor, whose works Ancient Roots in the City and Convey of Wisdom will be among those featured in the exhibit.
       A series of outreach activities, including art workshops in Payatas, Smokey Mountain and at the Quezon City Jail, will also be undertaken by Earth Art along with the exhibit at Stairway Gallery.