MOST of us have still to come to grips with uncertainty and the unknown. Japanese artist Atsuko Yamagata dives into the semiotic challenge to arrive at a painting that maps the language game. Do you understand the cloud?
While it can mean different things to different people, the uncertain future can seem to billow in either dark or bright nebulae. Yamagata creates an abstract representation where cumulous masses of black and white and shades of gray exist. Intermingled with the dark and light forms are cellular orbs made of warm and cool colors. While I was ready to take a minor glimpse and view the artwork for a few seconds—and thereby dismiss it outright as another dud among the many seen in the course of work as an art observer—the details of the painting made me turn back to appreciate it even more.
Cloud by Atsuko Yamagata encapsulates how we often face uncertainty and the unknown. Much of the process depends on the behavior of the traveler and beholder. If the traveler is persistent, he will look into the details of the horizon and not dismiss them outright. He may either see portents in the distance or pockets where opportunities abound.
In Yamagata’s work, foreshadowings of loss are apparent in dark clouds but so, too, in bright spots that can only be perceived after a time of close communion with the acrylic. Most observers will miss what’s almost hidden from plain sight in some of the cellular forms. But within these bright pockets of small space, the artist lets loose her joy of creating the most delicate flower patterns in a most miniature scale. Appearances can, indeed, be deceiving.
Yamagata’s work is only one of the few assembled of Filipino and Japanese woman-artists at the most recent show of the Reflections Gallery of Museo Orlina in Tagaytay City. Titled Gen/Ngayon 2, the ongoing exhibit—which runs until October 31—showcases diverse materials ranging from installation, paper art and crochet sculptures to paintings on textile. Gen/Ngayon 2 includes artworks by Yamagata, Lisa Ito, Aba Lluch Dalena, Kayo Nagata, Aze Ong, Mayuko Fukumoto, Sinag de Leon, Marie Ikura and Charlene Bayani.
The title of the show combines the Nihonggo word gen (), which is roughly translated into now, actuality or expression, and the Filipino word for now, or ngayon.
Its opening gala on September 14 brought to the art-loving community a set of exciting activities at the amphitheater of Museo Orlina. There was a live-painting demo, a paper-cutting lecture and other art performances with live music.
Museo Orlina is on Hollywood Street, Hollywood Subdivision, Tolentino East, Tagaytay City.