Garapata Man Invades Secret Fresh

Garapata Man, the multi-limbed character from Dex Fernandez seen ubiquitously from every nook and cranny of the city, from toilet doors, light switches, to fx cab doors and jeepney roofs, is fleshed out as a resin figure in editions of 20. This landmark collaboration between Dex Fernandez aka Garapata Man and Secret Fresh is to be launched this Sunday Feb 12 at 6 PM.

All Garapata Man figures come in sets of 3 composed of a gigantic rotund Daddy Garapata in Elvis coiffure and 2 baby Garapatas. All these shall be personally signed and numbered by the artist. 5 custom sets will also be released in cerulean blue, neon pink, black, gray and green.

The toy launch will be accompanied with an exhibit and sale of Garapata serigraph prints, shirts, button pins and stickers.

Plus live performances by electronic trio Gentle Universe and hard/space rock instrumental band Wilderness.

This also marks the inauguration of Gallery B, Secret Fresh's newest art space located at the basement of Ronac Art Center. This spacious industrial-themed art space is a welcome addition to Secret Fresh's ever expanding program and commitment to support and showcase current practice and trends in art and design.

Dex Fernandez recently came back from an artist residency in Vermont, USA. His created character Garapata Man was born from a childhood reminiscing of a wild and rambunctious cohabitation with beloved pet dogs. As a tribute, he sticks up and doodles these dandy-fied critters everywhere he goes as part of a DIY branding strategy and as an infectious manifestation of a participatory creative impulse.

For further queries about the event you may contact secretfesh.info@gmail.com or call 570-9815 loc 7. You may also check out Secret Fresh on FB, and on http://www.twitter.com/freshmanila
http://secretfresh.net/
http://www.freshmanila.blogspot.com/

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AGIT POP! Post-Its To The Post Apocalypse

AGIT POP! Post-Its To The Post Apocalypse

Secret Fresh’s year opener for 2012 is an exhibit of poster art created by Manila’s top and up and coming graphic designers and artists who also venture into illustration. The show opening this January 8 Sunday at 6 PM is entitled AGIT POP! Post-Its To The Post Apocalypse and showcases their poster designs which imagines them as message boards to a future world promising utopic visions in the aftermath of an imagined anticipated holocaust as prodded by the much Mayan calendar footnoting of the year 2012. Reversing the doomdsday prophesies, the posters present instead a possibility beyond such eventuality, speculating on the premise of a promised renewed world or the unfulfillment of such in a rather dystopia.

AGIT POP! Will be on view till the 27th of January. Secret Fresh is at Ronac Art Center, Ortigas Avenue, Greenhills, San Juan, MM. Secret Fresh is open from Mondays to Saturdays from 2 to 10PM and Sundays from 1 to 6PM.

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Thrilla Manila by Tilt & Mist @ Secret Fresh

Thrilla Manila

Two-man show by Tilt and Mist

Opening : December 11, 2011 Sunday 6PM

Exhibit Duration : 11 December 2011 – 3 January 2012

Secret Fresh

Ronac Art Center, Ortigas Avenue, Greenhills, San Juan

It had been 36 years ago since the historic match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier for the heavyweight title that was fought long and hard at Araneta Coliseum in 1975. Dubbed Thrilla in Manila, the epic bout had the two long standing rivals fighting fiercely for the belt and earning the victor a mall named after him. The mall became a de facto landmark for a brewing underground of old skool skaters playing hooky back in the 1980s leaving skid marks on railings and concrete steps and benches with mall guards on their heels quelling in vain the harbinger of anarchic hypertext that will eventually occupy blocks of the increasingly dense metropolitan Manila. From juvenile proclamations of being to anti-authoritarian self-righteous shout-outs, they all evolved into a symbiotic interplay of skin and structure surface and interface, landscape and context, text and meta-text in a parallel development of graffiti and street art culture here in Manila. Bouts are now fought territorially, on the perennially grimy surfaces competing attention with tarp billboards and civic sponsored public art, and tags and spray painted marks fiercely creep in in the frenzy of this hypertextualized city.

December 11 Sunday at Secret Fresh marks the reunion not between ferocious rivals but between long time collaborators to the city they keep coming back to where they have left their marks. Tilt and Mist, French graffiti artists based in France had been coming to Manila since 2004. Tilt’s trademark bubble fonts and Mist’s pointy-edged vivid tags had been spread out alongside the marks of local graffiti artists in Intramuros, A. Bonificao, San Juan, Cubao and in the wherewithals of rundown walls of metropolitan Manila which had been otherwise whitewashed or plastered by campaign posters or spraypainted over by other graffiti crew. They have also been collaborating with Movement 69, a small loose collective of local street artists composed of Whoop, A.lien, Tripp 69, Exld, Egg Fiasco and Nemo.

The exhibit Thrilla Manila will be featuring Tilt’s and Mist’s paintings and giclee prints incorporating Filipino icons with their graffiti style as what Tilt had done with the Philippine flag which was formed with Filipino text written in his bubble style font in such a manner that reinforces iconographic meaning with his interspersed bubble text, while Mist’s more abstract calligraphic style is a ponderous exercise on font as an organic form evolving into figures with distinct personalities.

Tilt and Mist’s collaborations extend beyond massive wall bombings to customizing art toys and an ice cream cart specially built for their exhibit at Secret Fresh.

Tilt and Mist is mostly identified with old school style graffiti .

Mist has been in the graffiti scene since the late 1980s and was part of the graffiti crew Control of Paris in 1992. With a formal background in design and a stint at a toy company, he has also developed his own character Debilz. His style, the ‘devil style’ is characterized by big outlines, vibrant hues, horns and pointy-limbed figures. His lettering likewise exhibits the same pointy features consequently having a life of its own and becoming characters themselves. He is being represented by Galerie Le Feuvre and Speerstra gallery in Europe. And spends most of his time in Montpeliier

Tilt is an internationally recognized graffiti artist originating from Toulouse in South France. A self-declared “graffiti fetishist”, he learned the trade in the streets and on trains as a youngster. In the time since he did his first tags on a skateboard ramp back in 1988, his ensuing career has been nourished and influenced by extensive travel. Inspirational journeys have seen Tilt exhibit and leave his mark as far and wide as the USA, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand,Laos, Taiwan, China, Canada, Philippines, Indonesia, the Maldives, and throughout Europe. He designed one of the watches collaborated on by Kidrobot and Swatch which was launched this year at Secret Fresh.

Thrilla Manila will open on December 11 Sunday at 6 PM and will be on view until January 3, 2012.

Secret Fresh is at Ronac Art Center, Ortigas Avenue, Greenhills, San Juan, MM.
Secret Fresh is open from Mondays to Saturdays from 2 to 10PM and Sundays from 1 to 6PM.
For more information about the show you may contact 570 9815 loc 7 or email secretfreshinfo@gmail.com or check them online for updates through their website http://secretfresh.net/ or thru Facebook http://www.facebook.com/secretfresh or http://www.twitter.com/freshmanila.

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Neil Arvin Javier Solo Exhibit @ Secret Fresh Gallery

THE END… is the start of a new beginning
NEIL ARVIN JAVIER solo exhibit
SECRET FRESH GALLERY
Ronac Art Center, San Juan, Metro Manila
13 November – 6 December 2011

THE END…is the start of a new beginning by Arvin Javier opens at November 13, 2011 at the Secret Fresh Gallery in Ronac Art Center, San Juan.

On his sixth solo exhibition, Javier expounds on his punk, street and recycled DIY sensibilities in paintings, collages, collaborative works, assemblages, and his new evolution of SculpTOYZ. As in all of his previous shows, Javier represents his highly personal stories in raw form, intentionally eschewing conventional methods of creating art, unafraid of consequences and uncaring of critique.

“It's the beginning of the beginning and the end of an era, and so much more than an artwork. It's my portfolio and describing it is describing me. Everything and anything must come to an end, in the end it doesn’t even matter because new life will start to emerge, just like a finished artworX, to begin a new one,” according to Javier.

What the audience may view as a vulgar explosion of illustrations may provoke or shock, but the artist stays true to his personal aesthetics in creating pieces that are filled with found images and conjured characters that inhabit his world and his life, rife with the saturation of mass media, iconography, pop culture, angst, rebellion against the system and mundane occurrences. Everything is discordant with the numerous portraits, monsters, animals, and humanoids layered with text, drips, sprays, brushwork and patterns, showing how random absurdities can be designed to disturb and disrupt our safe and sanitized lives.

An old carpet from the friendly neighborhood secondhand store is given new life as art with the addition of fabric cartoon characters snipped from old shirts and sewn into it, interacting with the central figure of a child reading with a lion. The cartoons mock, stare vacantly into space and stay cute, reeking of bubblegum humor, teasing the utter validity of the carpet as a household accessory. Monsters pile up like totem poles, premonitions of projects that are yet to come. A love letter is disguised as a mélange of text and ultra bright fluorescent colors, lamenting the dark memories of a love lost. A figure is built out of objects and faces encountered in the everyday, walking with a thought bubble filled with a babble of comic dialogues. Children’s wooden blocks are transformed into robots, with massage balls sprouting faces and metal legs.

It is very much a visual representation of Sid Vicious’ celebrated performance of My Way, where a drugged-up, droning, creepy monotone evolves into screams, bursts of vocal energy and gunshots. Some members of the audience might be unnerved, maybe even appalled, but they clap anyway, probably because in all its senselessness, it makes perfect sense. And this end is just the start of a new beginning.

Neil Arvin Javier graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Technological University of the Philippines in Manila. He was a semi-finalist at both the Philip Morris Philippine Art Awards and Metrobank Art Competition in 2003, and a finalist in the Royal Elastics Graffiti Competition in 2004 as well as in the Epson Photo Imaging Exposition and Manila, My Manila Photography Competition in 2005. He won second place in the first Philippine Drawing Society Art Competition in 2004.

(Kaye O’Yek, Manila, November 2011)

The exhibit will have its opening cocktails on November 13, Sunday at 6PM.

The exhibit opening will be complemented by a performance by Buntisan festival founder and pioneer sound artist Lirio Salvador of Elemento.

The exhibit will be on view until the 6th of December 2011.

Secret Fresh is at the Ground Floor of Ronac Art Center, Ortigas Avenue, North Greenhills, San Juan, MM. Contact details : (632) 5709815 local 7. Email freshmanila@gmail.com or secretfresh.gallery@gmail.com

Secret Fresh is open from Mondays to Saturdays from 2 to 10 PM and Sundays from 1 to 6 PM.

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Dia Delos Muertos @ Secret Fresh Gallery, Ronac Art Center

DIA DE LOS MUERTOS

Opening : October 23 Sunday 6PM
Show Duration : 23 October – 18 November 2011
Secret Fresh Gallery, Ronac Art Center, Ortigas Avenue, Greenhills, San Juan

Participating artists :

A.lien, Albert Sy, Alvin Capistrano, Alvin Zafra, Archie Geotina, Argie Bandoy, Arnold Austria, Beejay esber, Bembol dela Cruz, Bjorn calleja, Carina Santos, Chati Coronel, Christian Tamondong, Clint Catalan, Cos Zicarelli, Dave Lock, Deejae Paeste, Garapata Boy, Dexter Sy, Don Dalmacio, Edric Go, Epjey Pacheco, Frederick Sausa, ChillS Project, Ferdz Valencia, Gail Vicente, Gani Simpliciano Genepol Martin, Gino Javier, Goldie Poblador, Heidi Franco, Hepe, Ian Jaucian, Igan D’Bayan, Ino Caluza, Jacob Lindo, Jason Tecson, Jayson Oliveria, Jed Escueta, Jigger cruz, JJ Zamoranos, Joey Cobcobo, Joseph Tecson, JP Cuison,JP Tria, Kat Medina, Kiko escora, Lea Lim, Luis Santos, Lynyrd Paras, Marc Gaba, Mark Salvatus, Marija Vicente, Marvin Tojos, Mica Cabildo, Mike Crisostomo, Nemo aguila, Rain Dial, Ryan Villamel, Rolf Campos, Sam Kiyoumarsi, Tanya Villanueva, Tawnie Tantay, Tin Garcia, Tripp, Ungga, Vermont Coronel, Veronica Peralejo, Whoop, Yason Banal, Yeo Kaa and Zeus Bascon.

The show’s title takes off from the more festive Mexican version of our own Todos Los Santos (which is mistranslated in the vernacular as Araw ng mga Patay or as Undas).

Their persistence in being represented in the arts or in every platform of representation in our visual culture seem symptomatic of our fascination for and for our grasping for our fleeting mortality, hence being more than symbols of death, skulls also signify the preciousness of life that we all have to hold on to as dear and celebrate it for the fullness achieved in living it.

Of this existentialist exercise of pondering upon the calcic armature that supports the drapery of flesh and tissue which has been made as a yearly ritual/feast , does it ere yonder reveal our precarious hold on our mortality? We celebrate, we gorge on the deluge of tenuous emotions of sorrow and merriment, but tis the vanity or is it not we just prolong the eventuality of our inescapable end. The themes we like to portray in the pictures we like to hang on our walls seem to bespeak of such. We ponder and wonder but it’s both a miracle and an abomination. Alas, these are portraits of our very frail shells. We fill them up instead with the spirit of infinite jest.

A hundred cast resin skulls lined up on a shelf each customized by various artists as diverse as their age, cosmological outlook and style flesh out this philosophical point aside from the numerous drawings, paintings, prints and other sculptural works to complement the aforementioned custom skulls.

Dia De Los Muertos will have its opening on October 23 Sunday at 6PM and will be on view until November 18, 2011.

Secret Fresh is at Ronac Art Center, Ortigas Avenue, Greenhills, San Juan, Metro Manila.

Secret Fresh is open from Mondays to Saturdays from 2-10 PM and Sundays from 1-6 PM.

You may also check out Secret Fresh online - http://www.freshmanila.blogspot.com/ or http://www.twitter.com/freshmanila or Secret Fresh on Facebook for the latest updates.

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JJ Zamoranos' The Unwaking Hour @ Secret Fresh Gallery

“The Unwaking Hour”
4 September Sunday, 6 PM – opening reception and launch of his toy Vomit Boy
on view from 31 August – 20 September 2011

Ideas. What happens to those ideas once our minds have summoned them into existence? “The Unwaking Hour”, JJ Zamoranos' first solo exhibit which will be on view from the 30th of August to the 20th of September at Secret Fresh Gallery, serves as a hint to the absolute, unsubordinated minds of every human being that contributes to this surreal world of notions.

Contradictory as it may seem, (as the “un” part gives a sense of what it is to be in a dream subconsciously or just in a plain slumber, while the “waking” reflects the reality) this random thought expresses the collected ideas and binds them together in a whirlwind of imaginative and obviously surreal habitat created by every individual’s conception. Like the “choose your own adventure” book, the audiences are more than welcome to express their opinions and/or form a story based on what they see or feel roused by the visual and emotional stir. The titles are not there to reveal or hide the meaning of the works. They are intended to show the starting point of the whole story, waiting to be discovered by your mischievous and adventurous little hearts, backed-up by your own playful mind.

JJ Zamoranos, also known as EXLD in the graffiti/street art scene, has been tagging and bombing walls since 2006, while participating in numerous group shows in notable alternative art spaces in Manila. Getting wind so much of the freedom from painting in the streets, he dropped out from his fine arts degree program in FEU. His style mixes fluffy menace and steely whimsy with hopes of connecting on a deeper level to the audiences..

The Unwaking Hour will be on view from August 30 – September 20, 2011

The opening reception however will be held on September 4 Sunday at 6PM to coincide with the launch of his toy "Vomit Boy" to be released in editions of 30 worldwide.

For further inquiries you may emaill Secret Fresh at freshmanila@gmail.com or call 570-9815 local 7, or visit Secret Fresh at g/f Ronac Art Center, Ortigas Avenue, Greenhills, San Juan.

Secret Fresh is open from Mondays to Saturdays from 2-10 PM and Sundays from 1-6 PM.

You may also check out Secret Fresh online - http://www.freshmanila.blogspot.com/ or http://www.twitter.com/freshmanila or Secret Fresh on Facebook for the latest updates.

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Bjorn Calleja's The Color Bringer @ Secret Fresh Gallery

Bjorn Calleja’s The Color Bringer opening this Sunday June 26 at Secret Fresh Gallery features paintings that despite the upbeat positivist attitude the exhibit title may invoke, the central figure – a wide-eyed, fat-lipped tubby figure gazes melancholic towards the viewer, as though the offering of a rainbow to a gray monochrome world entailed a great sacrifice for this otherworldly gnome-like creature.

These are painted as portraits color-keyed to their ornate frames and to the wall where they hang. Their singular use of color are so intended as to amplify colors’ emotive response to one’s environment, each “portrait” a spectrum fractal of its maker, the artist, if we are to subscribe to the supposition that each picture an artist makes is essentially a self-portrait.

What Calleja seemingly reveals in this exhibit is that the end of a rainbow is not a pot of gold but rather these gnome-like creatures smirking in their reluctance to bring radiance, to be the color bringers to a world made dreary by routine, and where imagination and wonder are vastly becoming more precious than gold.

Calleja earned his fine arts degree from the Far Eastern University and has been exhibited in several notable galleries in Manila. He had his first solo exhibit at Lost Projects. This is his 2nd solo exhibit.

The launch of The Color Bringer toy, a resin cast figure based on one of Calleja’s paintings in the show, will also coincide with the exhibit. The toy has a limited release of 20 pieces worldwide. Each piece is signed and numbered by the artist.

The Color Bringer exhibit is on view until July 19, 2011.

For further queries email secretfresh.gallery@gmail.com or by calling Secret Fresh at 570-9815 local 7. Updates can also be tracked through Secret Fresh on Facebook, http://www.freshmanila.blogspot.com/ and http://www.twitter.com/freshmanila

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