Written by Cid Reyes:

The title of the show alludes to the famous quotation of the American poet Robert Frost: “Poetry is what is lost in translation.”  In these recent works, Jemina, an avowed Abstract Expressionist, reflects on the queen of all flowers, the rose.  The subject references Shakespeare’s line, addressed by Juliet to her Romeo: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose/ By any other name would smell as sweet.”  The artist’s trademark feathery brushstrokes swirl gently, forming the shape, density and texture of roses. Male and female figures embody the artwork’s romantic dynamics.

Write up by Bobby Nuestro:

“Reminding us on what is used to be.”

What if the exhibition does not romanticized the everyday, the familiar, the global, the media nor identity or society neither the meaning of images as well as the metaphor?  What if the exhibition does not deconstruct, ironized and subverted existing images from pop-culture nor from art history books?  What if the exhibition does not explain the familiar terrain of creativity based on post-modernist premise of everything is acceptable as long as you discourse it right?

Figure out is a one–person exhibition of Jemina at Arias Artspace, is not concerned with the above questions.  This exhibition is a personal diary based on the usual artist inspiration, using familiar works featured in art books as the platform to create a body of works: the reclining figure, the ballerina, the overweight figure, or the brushstrokes-filled portraits. This is the basic modernist approach to painting, deciphering the figure, reducing it to its barest essential, leading us into a magical mystery tour of the paintings according to the spontaniety of familiar subjects, including classical coloring and formal compositions; all accepted as aesthetically correct.  This kind of practice goes back to when painters have been trying to prove many possibilities in renditions not only in copying and creating illusions of reality, but resulting transforming the artist’s interpretation that is well defined as freedom of expression. The outcome is a fresh and refreshing statement of familiar subjects, which could lead to a new set of parameters.

What is wrong with aesthetic?  What is wrong to create beautiful paintings?  Somehow to go back to what is the basic is so hard to swallow especially in this age of creating bad art to make it good, to promote hatred to find peace and to sing out of tune, to be heard, the artist in this exhibition is here creating familiar paintings with new meaning through the age old basic painting credo of mastering the basic elements of art, line color texture etc. which concerns only on the positive way, the formal and the tested, easy to appreciate and warming our hearts.

Sometimes we have to go back to our senses never mind the highly complicated art discourses just go back to the basic, appreciate the sweetness, innocence and reality of paintings, a painting that will never be out of tune like the paintings in this exhibition.

“Figure Out,” at Arias Artspace at 210 Nicanor Garcia, 3rd Floor of LRI Building, Bel Air, Makati on February 20 through March 5, 2009.