solo show
SUGBO at Visayas Art Fair
VAST at 1335/Mabini Gallery
1335/Mabini is delighted to showcase Vast, the third solo exhibition of Chino Yulo. In this show, Yulo presents the subject matter that
is most familiar to his audience, which is the vast expanse of the sea and sky—total, encompassing, unimpeded by human presence. While the subject matter has been a popular theme in art for centuries and has inspired many artists to capture the moving beauty and mystery of the ocean, the artist interprets it through his dynamic manipulation of materials, either through the process of etching or application of heat. To achieve his aim, Yulo employs a wide selection of materials, such as copper, aluminum, and thermoformed acrylic. His works in metal capture the subtle striations of the waves, the billowing of clouds, and the swirls and vortices of something uniquely liquid. The thermoformed acrylic pieces, on the other hand, evoke how light plays on surfaces, akin to what the artist encounters while surfing or breaking through the skin of water after diving. The black acrylic sheet approximates the moonlit sea as the artist rides its tall, roaring waves. One of the highlights of the exhibition is the acrylic work suspended on the ceiling, accompanied by a painting of the moon. This installation creates an immersive experience for viewers, as if they were gazing up at the sky and contemplating the vastness of the universe. Surrounded by Yulo’s different iterations of the sea, the viewers establish the connection between the Earth and the cosmos, considering what eternity means in both human and universal scales. Vast, a triumph of the artist over his material, is also his abiding love letter to the ocean. Yulo’s ability to manipulate and transform various materials into artworks that convey the vastness and beauty of the sea and sky is a testament to his passion for the marine environment, how it sustains our unquenchable thirst for the unknown and the unknowable. Through his art, Yulo invites us to contemplate the infinite expanse of the world around us in an attitude of wonder and expectation.
- Carlomar Arcangel Daoana
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DEPTH at Pinto Art Museum
In his show, Depth, Chino Yulo once again brings the viewer to his favored subject matter—the sea—but this time from the more intimate perspective of being embraced by its beauty. His circular works (technically called as “tondo”), clustered in tableaus, represent the bubbles from the scuba diving gear he would don when, before the pandemic, the artist would routinely survey the wonders of the underwater world, with its dancing fauna, spiky sea urchins, and dizzying precipice drops usually carpeted with an explosion of marine life. Captured in the exhibition is the exhilaration of being out in the open waters, in which light is omnipresent and the sea and the sky are presences both conversing and converging. The horizon line provides the tentative divide between the evocations of these two forces: the waves and their undulations and the clouds and their sweeping passages, which, upon closer look, are reminiscent of dragon scales. Hence, Yulo titled some of the works after dragons in mythology and popular culture. In the absence of pigment, Yulo has created the domain of the sea through the vigorous etching of metal, which yields its light-reflecting properties. Even in such an unwieldy material, Yulo is able to evoke three-dimensionality, as the skies appear to be optically pushed further from the surface. It is the magic of Yulo’s material and technique coming together, striking the same feeling of looking at the ocean as light ride on its waves. Depth provides an insight into the sea as how Yulo sees it—magnificent, encompassing, and powerful. Such an immersion is not offered to the viewer through description alone but through the physicality of the artist’s gesture as well—the motions of the hand and arm etching on a metal plate similar to those of swimming and diving under the sea. With one gulp of air from his metaphorical scuba diving mask, Yulo’s vision clarifies to record and make permanent the resplendence before him.
- Carlomar Arcangel Daoana
MARAHUYO at Pinto Art Museum
In his first solo exhibition, Marahuyo, Chino Yulo answers to the call of the sea: from its placid constancy to its tempestuous rage. Composed of free-standing tabletop sculptures and wall-bound pieces, the artist’s range of works combines driftwood, resin, and metal to evoke stunning rock formations, cerulean blue waters, and light-drenched sky, punctuated by the occasional paper boat and airplane, which introduce the human element and child-like wonder to Yulo’s watery worlds. As the title promises, which means “to enchant” in the vernacular, these works initially seduce on the level of craftsmanship, as how the driftwood for instance, with its rough-hewn surface and metallic sheen, penetrates and emerges from the flat and semi-translucent resin, to depict islands. In one work, two pieces of driftwood are spanned by a bridge, as the water beneath is traversed by little boats. The wall-bound works, on the other hand, generate the same attraction. This time, the waters and the skies are evoked by the sinuous marks on aluminum, with the driftwood-as-islands jutting out from the flat surface in high relief. Surrounding the gallery space, they show the progress of light as only the sea can reveal with its spectacular atmospheric effects. But aside from the craftsmanship, these works draw the attention of the viewer for how they remind the generosity of the sea, which is threatened by humans who plunder its resources unabated. As how one work titled, “Alamat,” reminds the viewer, it is also home to other human living creatures, such as the whale which reveals its magnificent tail surrounded by pools of blood and spillage of oil. Marahuyo, as Yulo sees it, is not merely an attempt to translate the sea’s expansive resplendence but as a reminder to take care of it. After all, life emerged from the sea which continues to nurture it, offering sustenance and maintaining the Earth’s precarious balance. As the sculptures turn and the wall-bound works embrace the viewer, Yulo makes a case for looking at the sea beyond its surface beauty and acknowledging its inextricable link to humans and all life forms on the planet.
- Carlomar Arcangel Daoana
