“Life Within,” the third solo exhibition of Alvin Florentino, explores aspects of the human experience through ornate paintings of children’s clothing pieces.
Filipino artist Alvin Florentino is getting recognized more and more these days. He created a stir at the last Art in the Park when his paintings were immediately bought and people wanted more, but there were only two available.
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He recently had his third solo exhibition called “Life Within” at J Studio where he showcased a dozen 24 x 18 inch works and two 4 x 3 foot works. All 14 were sold. His paintings depicted clothing of children. Looking at these closely would show very detailed work reminiscent of icing on a cake.
The artist has had two solo exhibitions in the past — “Narrative Threads” in 2016 and “Clash of Nature” in 2017. He has also joined several group exhibitions including those at the Affordable Art Fair in Singapore in 2014 and Art Jakarta in 2015, and was part of a group show at Galleria Camay in both New York and Hong Kong in 2019.
Born in Sorsogon in 1990, Alvin studied at EARIST Manila (Eulogio “Amang” Rodriguez Institute of Science and Technology), which awarded him an Outstanding Student Award of the College of Architecture and Fine Arts. He is a multi-awarded artist who has won several accolades including the Grand Prize at the Araw ng Kagitingan Painting Competition in 2008. He was also a Grand Prize Winner in the calendar category and a finalist in the watercolor category at the Shell Student Art Competition in 2012, and a Grand Prize Winner at Metrobank Art and Design Excellence Painting Competition (oil/acrylic category) in 2013. He has been a finalist in several other painting competitions as well.
Art critic Philip Paraan writes on the exhibition notes: “He invites us to look with a soft poetic gaze at colorful clothes of young children as human portraits. Through these paintings, he not only asserts their bodily presence but their threatened existence and possibly how we can avert it. In the details of these items of clothing, he provides a mysterious, coded yet readable statement and profile the legible identities of each wearer and their fragile nascent states that radiates not just beauty but such unquestionable essence and ‘life within.’ These colorful clothes may be immediately ghostly and poignant in appearance, but they do reveal some expressive means that evoke hope, faith, enthusiasm and promise that are able to come into terms with the current quandaries of our troubled humanity.”
Whatever these paintings may convey, they are truly a joy to look at.
J Studio is located at Pasillo 18, La Fuerza Gate 1 Compound, 2241 Chino Roces, Makati City. Email [email protected] for inquiries.
Photos courtesy of J Studio.
