Potential, Potency, and Women Printmakers
The exhibition brings together prints by women from different generations who represent potential and potency. The title comes from the essay written by Imelda Cajipe Endaya for the Association of Pinoyprintmakers’ 50th anniversary show Tirada: 50 years of Philippine Printmaking 1968-2018 held at the Cultural Center of the Philippines Main Gallery. In the text, Endaya recalls the involvement and contribution of women printmakers in the founding of Philippine Association of Printmakers (PAP) and evaluates how female labor and sensibilities inform and deepen the artistic practice of printmaking. The gathering of works from the CCP 21st Century Art Museum (21AM) Collection hopes to highlight the values that are practical in the creative process such as aptitude for repetitive processes, replication, attention to detail, and modest but impactful experimentation. The displayed prints from the sixties, seventies, and eighties were initially shown at the exhibition WOMAN: Thesis and Antithesis held at the Yuchengco Museum in March 2023. These works, from the Women Expressions section, were created using a wide range of printmaking techniques and reflect the artists’ different concerns of their times.
Potential, Potency, and Women Printmakers also highlights Ileana Lee’s conceptual and abstract explorations in printmaking to illustrate practices by women that visually capture the tactility of artistic process. Lee, born in Negros Occidental in the late seventies, made an installation work using dotted tapes to demarcate a space in various spaces such as Shop 6, Museum of Philippine Art (MOPA), and the CCP. This was described by a critic as “an act of reclaiming the space of women artists in the art world.” The earlier artworks converse with the recent prints from the 20/30: A Limited Edition Print Portfolio in Celebration of the 50th Year Anniversary of the Cultural Center of the Philippines. The print folio project, while ideated before the rise of the Covid19 pandemic, has been a channel for the participating artists to deal with the difficulties of our time and to give back to the institutions that support printmaking practice. The understanding of printmaking is a good entry point to the significance of the 21st Century Art Museum (21AM) framework wherein process is first in terms of information and discussion of creative endeavors. Printmaking shares many aspects with traditional art, such as communal making, mutual learning, and democratic circulation. Activating the potential and potency of the creative process, the exhibition of prints exemplifies our collective passion to “sustain our humanity amidst artificial inteIIigence’s potent intrigues.”
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Featured artists:
Ambie Abano, Glenna Aquino, Ivi Avellana-Cosio, Kristen Cain, Imelda Cajipe Endaya, Petite Calaguas, Evelyn Collantes, Yas Doctor, Brenda Fajardo, Ofelia Gelvezon-Tequi, Ileana Lee, Lenore RS Lim, Araceli Limcaco-Dans, Hershey Malinis, Flora Mauleon, Caroline Ongpin, Henrielle Baltazar Pagkaliwangan, Imelda Pilapil, Christina Quisumbing Ramilo, Rhoda Recto, Suchin Teoh, Phyllis Zaballero
