GALLERY FOCUS : FILARTS GALLERY FILARTS GALLERY

Inching Into Its First Year

Unang Hirit. Singularities. PaperWorks 2o23. These were the Gallery’s exhibition projects which were put up beginning in the middle of May of last year. Unang Hirit naturally heralded the group’s first foray into the art exhibition business. Singularities highlighted the Gallery’s roster of artists’ unique tropes on their individual canvases. PaperWorks was the Gallery’s way of looking into a more affordable pricing for our clients up north of Quezon City.

Just like any other endeavors, legit or illicit, the FilArts Gallery was born out of the congenialities of friendships. Coffee and conversations distill the substance of commonalities between people. Coffee and conversations prioritize matters of importance. Roy Espinosa and Al Vargas reside in the same neighborhood. When the issues of homeowners monthly dues and nasty neighbors become stale the topic of creative painting persists. Both are artists.

Al Vargas was ‘discovered’ by Roy Ama at a small café under an escalator at SM City Fairview. Roy Ama and Julius Clar were having archaic jokes and coffee when he saw a quiet guy just next to our coffee table doing small water color spots on his pocket book’s inside pages. Julius Clar thought they were charming. From those water color works flowed a river of friendships which connected to Roy Espinosa. Mark Vinas came in a bit later.

Roy Espinosa is noted, aside from being a sought-after artist, as an art event organizer, here and abroad. His connections in the Asian region and in Turkey, Italy and Germany take him to travel out of the country four times a year attending art shows, symposia and other art-related conferences. He also publishes art coffee table books which are being circulated in the Asian regions and in some parts of Europe and the U.S.A.

Al Vargas is a self-taught artist who does his small works in water color. When Roy Ama and Julius Clar met him he had a bagful of painting paraphernalia: a small set of water color, a few brushes and a self-wetting pen. Included in the bag was a 9x12 inches acid free papers, but his favorite substrate has always been his books.

Mark Vinas is a young art dealer on weekdays and a Christian pastor on weekends. Mark creates pieces reminiscent of the 70s themes, in realistic terms. He is also into artwork restoration. As an art dealer he is concentrated on the 60s and 70s local artists.

Roy Ama had earlier tried oil pastel and acrylic medium abstract paintings and had shows in a gallery along Maginhawa Street in U.P. Village. His medium-sized acrylic on canvases had been collected here and in the U.S. mostly. Roy Ama once owned an advertising agency but when he was hit by heart problems twice he gathered something from those life-changing events: that he should quit advertising and go into art!

Julius Clar have had a few exhibitions for his fine-art photography and assemblage works. He has had shows in the Cultural Center of the Philippines, the Art Center, the Ayala Museum, the Lopez Memorial Museum, and the Silverlens Gallery, among other places. He is now into collage medium, and acrylic abstract expressionism.

So when these five artists meet to talk there is no other talk other than shop talk. And naturally putting up a physical art gallery was a logical offshoot. They looked at some spots around the northern side of Quezon City and the group finally decided on the present location: the Robinsons Fairview.

“The people around the area are not yet aware of our existence, but we are hopeful,” said Roy Espinosa, the Gallery head. “FilArts Gallery is actually a non-profit organization and we would be pushing future projects geared along that commitment,” he said.

Future plans for the gallery include group tutorials for elementary and secondary students on the different aspects of artmaking, and in the history of art. “Art History is very important,” said Roy Ama, the group’s marketing person. “It is where one knows where one is coming from, and where one is going with regards to artmaking.”

There is also a plan to show works by artists from Asia and Europe. One of the first projects is to show works on paper by foreigner artists. This will be designed to convince Filipino art connoisseurs that works on paper are also equally important; that all works of art are of equal importance. At least this is what post-modern art is trying to say to us.

The FilArts group is in the works of putting up the first art fair in QC. Roy Espinosa is at work with some people at the QC government on the mechanics of the first QC art and crafts fair.

FilArts Gallery is located at the new expansion building of Robinsons Fairview (along Quirino Hi-way of Barangay Pasong Putik)—the mall entrance closest to Nova Stop bus terminal. It conducts short seminars on watercolor and acrylic paintings, charcoal portraiture, basic drawing, and digital photography. Its in-house charcoal portrait artist can do commissioned family portraits at very reasonable prices.

For inquiries, FilArts can be contacted through Email: filartsgallerymail.com, Facebook: filarts Gallery and mobile phone 0912.569.36.22.