October 04, 2004
In October 2004, Hiraya Gallery, located at 530 UN Avenue, Ermita Manila will turn 24 years as a premier exhibition venue of paintings, prints, sculptures, photography and art installations by Filipino visual artists. Through the periods of political changes in the Philippines, Hiraya kept its tradition of discovering young and unknown artists and cuddling them into their first public exhibition.
Hiraya did not bank its reputation on well-known and popular artists and instead took risks on the might of the artistic visions as commentaries on the Filipino way of life, its society and institutions. This stance has emboldened the artists to attempt new approaches and perspectives towards the form, content and styles of expression in their works of art.
To mark this milestone in its business as patron of the arts, Hiraya mounts a new and exciting exhibit entitled “The Unbearable Be-ing of Nothingness,” a visual paean to loafing on the beaches, dabbling into spirituality, teen-age angst, and plain street sights.
The loafer, the rambling thinker, and the mischievous observer is the 31-year old MAYA MUÑOZ, who filled her canvasses with snapshots of human gestures drawn with scrawled lines and blurred images. She locks her objects inside wide spans of earthy and ethereal colors which spawn their affective moods of wonder, capriciousness of the spirit, and lazy bantering. Her choice of trite subjects creates that easy feeling of chattering among her unseen ghosts of friends.
This display of hidden impulses to connect with life and total strangers express the ephemeral feeling of rapture earned from the gaze of a sensitive artist. When an artist chooses to emulate life into his art, his mind and heart becomes an express coach for memories. In this exhibition, Maya unleashes the frenetic energy of her generation—the yuppies of the 90’s.
The kaleidoscope of subjects and inspirations in the paintings of Maya Muñoz originate from novel emotions which she experienced while travelling in the Philippines, a homeland which she missed for 20 years until 2001. She is a balikbayan.
Maya Muñoz was a former student at the San Jose University at Silicon Valley, California, USA. She took up a tertiary course with emphasis on paintings and three-dimensional space design. Being pulled by her spirit of artistic independence, she quit schooling and put up a studio in San Jose.
The exhibition at Hiraya Gallery is her first one-woman show in Metro Manila and in the Philippines. The artist reception will be on Saurday, October 16 at 6 p.m. Hiraya Gallery is located at 530 U.N. Avenue, Ermita, Manila. Gallery hours are from 9 to 5 Monday to Saturday and by appointment on Sunday. For more information please call 523-3331 or email us at hiraya@info.com.ph or visit our website: www.hiraya.com
