St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival Singapore 2012
Photos by Gabby Cantero & Asywan Adam

Photos by Gabby Cantero
For Uncut with Timmy Eigenmann (a.k.a. Sid Lucero)
By Mikael Daez for The Philippine Star
Hair by Chris Rodil for L’Oréal Professionnel
Makeup by Joyce Platon

HAIR & MAKEUP: Joyce Platon

PATTI GRANDIDGE is the host of ETCETERA, 7:45 PM every Sunday on ETC.

PHOTO: Cholo Dela Vega | MIXING: DJ Euric

Manila fashion crowd favorite SASSA JIMENEZ is certainly inspired, and it shows not only on her delicate pieces of silk and tulle but also on her runway music. Sassa shares some tracks that are currently on her playlist. This may be scratching her drawing board’s surface.

Photos by Gabby Cantero
For Uncut with Venus Raj and Shamcey Supsup
By Mikael Daez in The Philippine Star
Hair by Chris Rodil for L’Oréal Professionnel
Makeup by Joyce Platon & Carla Avanceña

WORDS: Nante Santamaria | PHOTO: Gabby Cantero

When UP Theather Arts senior JACINTA REMULLA looks back to her moment of discovery as a film actor, she’d remember drinking in her friend’s house at Manila’s Craig Street, where directors Jono de Rivera and Bia Catbagan were shooting Suntok sa Buwan. “Can you sing for us right now?” asked Catbagan. Remulla obliged, and she’d be told, “You’re 99% in already. I just have to see you read with Dan Fernando,” her character’s lover in the film. Having played Gulnara in the lauded musical Orosman at Zafira, she was not entirely new to performance, so she, of course, got the film role. “I’m a flower girl,” Remulla describes her character, Maricel, who is a blooms vendor at Manila’s Dangwa Flower Market. Viewers will be delighted to know that she is already contemplating on doing another film, director Ice Idanan’s Love Letters for this year’s Cinemalaya.

Suntok sa Buwan will hold its red carpet premiere at SM Megamall’s Cinema 1 on 22 January 2012.

WORDS & PHOTO: Nante Santamaria

Four years ago, JAMES JEAN, the Taiwanese-American artist revered for his work with DC Comics and Prada, quit working for The Man. It was in 2009 when he celebrated his outing as a full-time fine artist through Kindling at Jonathan LeVine Gallery, anointing ground for today’s best pop imagists. The venue’s namesake art dealer thought Jean was “unattainable.” His ultra-defined creatures and landscapes blurring the line between digital and hand sketching, his visceral figure renderings, and his abstract strokes of color all make for something deliciously sublime.

Jean, having graduated from New York’s School of Visual Arts in 2001 and having mounted wildly successful shows since (Rift in 2010 and Rebus in 2011), thinks he still doesn’t know anything. The man is serious, deliberately pausing as if absorbing the gravity of every word he thought difficult as he contemplated being “in the middle of this politically, socially, culturally complex world.”

Art, being also autobiography, has this as Jean’s word: “an ongoing narrative that I’m still trying to discover. That’s the journey of being an artist; a lot of the stuff is discovering…and maybe neurosis and obsessions that have developed when we were children, and those become haunting…” This, he remembers as a three-year-old boy in Taiwan: the waft of burning incense, its smoke dispersing into delicate, indeterminate matter. He adds, “One thing I cherish is the freedom to live a creative life.”

Photos by Gabby Cantero
For Uncut with JC Tiuseco and Sarah Lahbati
By Mikael Daez in The Philippine Star
Hair by Mystery Person
Makeup by Joyce Platon

WORDS: Nante Santamaria | PHOTO: Kaity Chua

The reality of the art world, as in any other professionalized industry, includes competition. Everybody wants the most prestigious grants, galleries, and auctions. Meanwhile, the second season of the art world’s reality TV show, Work of Art: the Next Great Artist, had found its winners and had given them solo shows at Brooklyn Museum. One of them is Filipino-Canadian multimedia artist SARA JIMENEZ. We gathered some words about Sara’s painted pictures during her latest visit in the Philippines.

What’s your usual intended effect and process like?
Overall, I know that I am interested in creating visceral experiences for the viewer, where there are elements of mystery, intrigue, and multiple entry points so that there are many possible meanings. The process of art-making is work, pain, moments of relief and inspiration.

Which do you think is the best way to learn–becoming self-taught or going to school?
School is not for everyone. For me, I did not get a degree in art for undergraduate but rather in Semiotics and Philosophy. I am in graduate school [Parsons] for art now, which is a new and exciting challenge. I think the most important thing is that I make work consistently no matter what, whether I am in school or not, and that I see a lot of art and talk to a lot of other artists. School for me has accelerated and motivated these processes, but it’s not the only way to go about it.

How have you grown creatively through Work of Art?
Work of Art has shown me that I can do so much more than I thought I was capable of, in terms of endurance, creativity, risks, pressure, stress, being visible, etc. I have come to realize that a lot of the limits I put on myself are imaginary.

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