KRUSADA SA KALIKASAN

The Kapentura Art Group opens its first major art exhibit, KRUSADA SA KALIKASAN, at the Artasia Gallery. The paintings to be shown will revolve around the theme of environmental degradation and its now anticipated regeneration. That theme has been tackled many times in the past - particularly and expertly so by Prudencio Lamarroza - whose Amburayan Queen series served as inspirational matrix for many younger painters who looked up to him as their master.

Today, with the assumption by Gina Lopez of the post of DENR Secretary, there is renewed hope that the long-time bane of environmentalist, like destructive mining, illegal fish pens, and air pollution, would finally be put to a stop. That is a tall order. But with the perceived sincerity of the Secretary, and her vigorous and prompt sanction of the mining firms, we can expect nothing less than a real overhaul of the whole ecologically-destructive mindset that pervades our culture.

The Kapentura group was "conceived" in Malolos Bulacan, when the group of Danny Pangan. Josefino Rodriguez, and Nemencio Macapugay lingered around for a while in a coffee-shop inside Robinson Place while waiting for the opening of a film showing in a cinema there. The group had with them that time their sketchpads and drawing tools. So, to pass the time, they proceeded forthwith to do sketches of the pretty baristas and the security guard. That activity became a weekly Monday routine for them. Last May, the group was invited to join the Art & Appetite event at the Bonifacio Global City (BGC), where they rented a booth to display their artworks. That event at the BGC marked the official "birth" of the Kapentura group, who had since exhibited in New York, and had conducted several plein air painting sessions on a farm in Bulacan.

KRUSADA is considered as the group's first major art exhibit because the members will be exhibiting in full force, so to speak, for the first time. Members based in the United States will be here to join the show together with the founding members and the new recruits. The participating artists are Helen Dimaya-Amladi, John Wesley Bautista, Fidelis Balagtas-Belda, Frank Caña, Butch Jacinto, Dan Macapugay, Nemencio Macapugay, Arnel Mirasol, Danny Pangan, Josefino Rodriguez, Avelino San Juan, Jerome Sta. Maria, April Gamboa-Villacorta, Art Zamora, and Ponciano Zapanta.

Frank Caña's masterful painting Womanature@15 (above) interprets best the theme of this show. According to Caña, the naked woman in fetal pose represents Mother Nature, who, as an ubiquitous entity, is present everywhere. Each tree trunk is a womb in which she gestates. Thus, each tree trunk cut, is Mother Nature herself being cut and destroyed. But hope springs eternal as they say, for it always happen that from a cut tree trunk new leaves may grow heralding rebirth, while butterflies hover expecting the stirring of new flower buds.

The show opens on November 8, Tuesday, at 6 pm - and ends on November 18. The Artasia Gallery is on the 4th floor of Megamall Building A, Mandaluyong City. For inquiries, please call Lenny : 09182130590 or 634 5945.