Perlas ng Silangan: Art Exhibition Celebrating Filipino Women’s Strength and Beauty
By Virtual Artist, Rommel Rico
SM Sta. Mesa will be the setting for a showcase of Virrco Artworks celebrating the strength and beauty of Filipino women. It’s a fascinating study into the power of portraiture and acrylic painting depicting Filipino women in Filipiniana attire. It runs from the 12th June until 13th of July.
The duality of Filipino women’s nature and its reflection of inner beauty is explored through the acrylic medium of pastel colors and Philippine landscape imagery, giving focus to the subtle nuances of expression, smiles, strands of hair, light, and shadow that all play their part in crystallizing the vision of Filipina women’s beauty. There are moments of quiet reflection, moments of joy, bliss, and silent ecstasy that communicate the strength and power of beauty shining through from the inner self and the dreamy Philippine naturisque landscape.
Rommel a.k.a. VIRRCO explains: “FILIPINA Women mentally are terribly strong and resilient, but they are also fragile and innately charismatic. I believe there is an incredible beauty in this dichotomy. The Perla ng Silangan project is a celebration of femininity, tenacity as well as a celebration of each person and their Filipino character.”
Painted during the pandemic in the Philippines, the artworks are powerful representations of Filipino womanhood and come with headline messages from the women themselves. His friends and women he admires most, such as Gigi Banzuelo Rio, Jijie Guttierrez, Rowena Arevalo, Raylin Famatiga, and other Women represented in familiar faces and poses will be at the center stage of this exhibit.
Duyan Project and SM Sta Mesa is also thrilled to be putting together this important exhibition, celebrating the Filipino feminist celebration while celebrating the Philippine Independence day. Too often, masculinity is equated with power, strength, and success in the independence day commemoration, but this exhibition celebrates and embraces empowering femininity, which has been swept beneath the carpet for too long.” Of course, we have women heroes who helped in achieving independence like Gabriella Silang, Tandang Sora to name a few, but we are witnesses of common modern-day heroes like our mothers, our aunts, the wives supporting each family, the OFW women who leave their family to work abroad just to be able to provide a better future for their families, the women helping the Duyan kids nonetheless also share this limelight.
There is something that we can all take from this. To see these immortalized beauties in acrylic painting will make you pause to reflect and focus on the inner strength of these Filipina women. They empower each and every one of us in our lives and enable us to become the best version of ourselves. Making these women heroes in their own right. A true gem like a pearl of the orient, the true Perlas ng Silangan.