SM Mall of Asia X Secret Fresh Gallery

Last Thursday, I got an email invite from SM MOA to check out their graffiti art exhibit in collaboration with Secret Fresh Gallery happening on May 9. The exhibit  featuring works of Christian Tamondong, Egg Fiasco and JJ Zamoranos was launched at the North Entertainment Mall and I had the chance to squiggle out of the office for a while (thanks to my awesome boss!) to take photos and talk to the organizers of the event. 

This exhibit is an effort by SM to showcase graffiti as an art form. They've started it in SM North EDSA Skywalk with Dee Jae Paeste, and it makes me so happy that they're doing it again with 3 of the most talented graffiti artists in the Philippines. I think it's a pretty awesome move from SM because they have the space and the resources to really show the works of these artists to mall goers. Graffiti has always had a bad rap with the average onlooker since it's almost always synonymous to vandalism, but to the artists, it's simply a form of self expression, defying limits and getting out of the comfort zone using the urban landscape. There is a thin line between vandalism and street art as anyone can get a can of spray paint, draw a few faces and a couple of cuss words and say it's self expression but you know good art when you see one, I guess, and hell I've seen them at work last Friday!

Egg Fiasco and his signature monkey biz

 

Christian Tamondong and what I assume is a bunny rabbit (but I don't want to jump into conclusions)

JJ Zamoranos and his cutie creature

Dear Ice Cream, Y U SO COOL?!

What a dork.

The exhibit also showed toy sculptures from the Secret Fresh gallery at the North Mall's ground floor pocket garden. These were carved from wood and painted with acrylic. The artists painted these themselves based on their own design. I met Angelo, a tattoo artist. He showed me his box boy tattoo by Christian Tamondong. He got it two years ago! 

With Dennis and Big Boy of Secret Fresh Gallery

 According to Big Boy of Secret Fresh, the preparation for the launch only took them two weeks. They've managed to bring the artists together and pull off the exhibit in that short amount of time. The two murals located on each side of the pocket garden was done by the three artists within 2 hours! It blows my mind. It takes me almost the whole day to paint on paper! Talking to Dennis and Big Boy, I could feel that there's so much enthusiasm and passion about street art and vinyl toy collecting. Secret Fresh believes in their artists regardless of background or credentials and provide opportunities for emerging ones to break into the scene. The whole scene though is all about community, collaboration, support and respect for each other's work.

There is something about street art that will always amaze and capture me. The scale of the paintings, the medium, the ideas behind the images being made; most importantly, it's the fact that it's never snooty or intimidating. I love that I can walk up to a painting, touch it one day and return to the same place and see a different painting on another. It's really a win-win situation. This partnership ensures that artists will have the space that they need to show their work,  SM MOA won't have to worry about boring white walls again. Hopefully, this collaboration between Secret Fresh and SM Mall of Asia is only the first of many. 

The Secret Fresh Art Exhibit runs until May 31, 2014
Artists:
Egg Fiasco
Christian Tamondong
JJ Zamoranos

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Psychedelic Sightings: SM North Skywalk Murals

It's the last day of October! 2 months to go and it's 2000-fureakin-14 already!

On my way to work this morning, I was contemplating on the little triumphs and failures of the past year. I think the little victories outweigh the setbacks, so I'm really really thankful. There are a lot of things that I still need to work on, but the pursuit for growth is still pretty much on track. Travel, work, cupcake business and creativity take the biggest portion of the achievement pie this year, while running and the band's album/EP has taken a back seat. Ah, so much to do and so much to learn still! I can't wait to reach new milestones this coming year.

Anyway, before you guys go out and proceed with your trick or treating, let me share a bunch of photos from an impromptu trip earlier this week to the North--as in SM North. Haha. I was walking along the skywalk when I chanced upon this awesome set of murals.

I was trying to figure out who the artist is, because I've seen the same style in one of the walls in Bonifacio High Street. Sadly, my world class stalking and google searching skills didn't serve me well this time, so I'll leave it up to you to check it out for yourself and admire the work.

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NYC Street Art - 5Pointz Graffiti

Finally, an uninterrupted weekend in New York City! This is the first weekend in which I didn't receive any text messages from my teammates about work, and boy it has been a pleasant change. I'm so excited to write about my artsy fartsy experiences here and one of the first things that I wanna share is this awesome graffiti place called 5Pointz in Queens. This is not part of my original NY 2013 Bucket List, but one afternoon, it just occurred to me that I needed to check out some local street art like the one that I accidentally stumbled upon in Australia. 

My cousin Mayel who lives in Brooklyn brought me here 'cause I told her I wanted to check out NYC urban art. I mean, that's what New York is about, right? Initially I was hoping to catch a Banksy installation, but when I did my research and due to the ephemeral nature of street art, his works aren't available anymore.

I still wasn't disappointed, because the place was abso-fucken-lutely fantastic. 

An entire building of graffiti art, it's visual overload!

The relentless snow being captured on cam!

That's my cousin Mayel right there, taking photos (or figuring out where to take me next).

I heart NY!

 Someday, I'm going to learn how to use spray paint and work on a large scale doodle/illustration

The requisite selfie!

Even the pavement has stenciled art on it!

It took me a while to figure this one out; I just admired the colors, but it's actually Beauty and The Beast!

It was snowing that day and we were originally hoping to see graffiti artists at work, but didn't catch any. It was too bad, coz I really wanted to capture the process on how they made these extraordinary works of art, but seeing the whole graffiti complex was worth the trip anyhow. This blog post and the photos here do not give the place justice!

 Sorry I just had to do that.

And yes, she just had to do this!

5Pointz signifies the 5 boroughs of New York -- Manhattan, Brooklyn, The Bronx, Staten Island and Queens coming together as one. Graffiti artists from all over the world have come together and used this warehouse as their canvas, and at the same time the venue has hosted several events for photographers, break dancers, musicians and artists to share their craft to onlookers and tourists. The building is located at 45-46 Davis Street, Long Island City, NY

Find out more about them here

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