For Francis Nacion’s 13th solo and his 1st abstract exhibition, ImaheNACION, gives us glimpses of the artist’s memories with his mother. Nacion fondly shares that his mother used to sew his school uniform and that he would play around with loose textiles from his mother’s work. Little did he know that he would turn his childhood works of art into reality.
Expect to see Nacion playing with textile, lines and shapes for this exhibit. Additionally, ImaheNACION is the artist’s tribute to his mother, a picture of love, hard work and care for their family.
Taking inspiration from Paul Klee, the German artist known for his quilts of color and simple stick figures, Nacion has come up with an artistic style that is all his own.
His works appear as dreamlike images in which fiction and reality meet, well-known tropes merge, meanings shift, past and present fuse. Time and memory always play a key role. By questioning the concept of movement, he considers making art a craft which is executed using clear formal rules and which should always refer to social reality.
ImaheNACION features works that will surely bring life and color to any room. This may be Nacion’s first abstract exhibition, but the audience will be delighted to see that Nacion maintains his signature style of using vibrant colors, showing the importance of families, and paying homage to Filipino values and traditions.
According to Ricky Francisco, art curator/director of Fundacion Sanso and Abstract Artist, “Nacion’s abstraction, which is based on his personal recollection of his mother’s favorite hobby of sewing, is unique in the Philippine art scene in that it honors his mother and the craft which is perceived as a feminine, domestic activity.
He does this while integrating his own bricolage of artistic influences like Basquiat, maximalism and urbanism. In so doing, Nacion merges high art with craft, feminine and masculine, folk and city, maximalist and minimalist, the personal and the universal, in an aesthetic language that is easy to comprehend and Filipino in its predilection for detail, color and pattern.”
Meanwhile Cid Reyes, writer-publisher of Art & Lifestyle Magazine, adds that, “Renowned for his stylized figurative forms of women distinguished by the trademark half-rendered visage, Francis Nacion, in his 13th solo show, journeys into the realm of abstraction. The impetus for this latest visual adventure is his very concrete affection and love for the woman who gave life to him- his own mother. The artist remembers her as a typical Filipino mother who cared for her family, attending to their daily meals and the clothes they wore, sewing the future artist’s school uniform.
“ImaheNACION” is a rousing celebration of filial affection manifested in the pulsing energy of myriad pieces of fabrics and textiles, radiant with compulsive, symphonic colors and an array of animated, spirited patterns. With these works, Nacion vivifies the art of collage, elevating it to the level of the emotive, the more affective since they were impelled by motives that transcend the merely decorative and ornamental.”
The exhibition is curated by Ian Belleza and will run from May 30 — June 12 at Art Lounge Manila —Molito Lifestyle Center, Ayala Alabang. The opening reception will be on June 5, 2022 at 6:00PM.
