on ofelia gelvezon-tequi: the need for more allegories
Gelvezon-Tequi’s retrospect is probably the most important exhibition by a Filipina artist for this year.
Let me begin by narrating my own encounter with Ofelia Gelvezon-Tequi, though not personal but through her work. Days before the re-opening of the gallery where I used to work, I received a framed still life painting of quaint Chinese ceramics. The small work, ironically, turned out to be a big challenge for me to hang. I had to find an empty wall where it would not drown in the middle of other larger canvas. The exquisite details rendered in the painting, despite the size of it, prove that Gelvezon-Tequi is an expert in the genre. But I have proven myself wrong. In the artist’s retrospect titled “Allegories and Realities”, currently exhibited at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, it features one corner dedicated for some of her bigger still life paintings. She is no longer an expert. She has mastered the genre and made it recognizable for her own distinct style.
With over a hundred of artworks on display, the exhibition showcases Gelvezon-Tequi’s artistic expression and visual language throughout her career as an artist-printmaker: from her nude sketches (when she was still a Fine Arts student in the University of the Philippines-Diliman), etched images in her dawn landscape series, paintings on folklores, anting anting, and the different depictions of the Virgin Mary, to paintings that explore political themes.
Gelvezon-Tequi, through her works, presents to her audience a world where both visual and literary languages are interwoven with each other, creating a set of familiar and new allegories, all within the Filipino consciouness.
A few days after seeing the exhibition, Manila has been placed in a lockdown due to the pandemic. It is very unfortunate that the exhibit will not get the attention and appreciation it deserved. How often do we see works of a Filipina artist in a retrospective exhibition, especially in an industry that is mostly dominated by men? The irony of it is that such pondering comes from another male perspective.
Indeed, there’s a need for more allegories in art. This time, not from a man who is frightened of his own shadow, but from a woman who has freed herself from being imprisoned in a cave.
(texts and photographs provided by the author)
