While many people were off to their various destinations for this 3-day weekend, my familia ended up having a forced staycation due to pre-bought Wicked tickets.
Anyhoo, despite my initial wistfulness over not being able to spend the holiday out of town, I eventually just decided to make the most out of my family’s time in the city by exploring a new place that we’ve always been wanting to visit, but never get to. For our first road trip of the year, we settled on trekking to Antipolo for a long overdue tour of Pinto Art Gallery. Let me warn you in advance that this post will be quite picture heavy. Hahaha! As expected, the gallery grounds and the art were so beautiful (spoiler alert!), that I couldn’t resist clicking away on my iPhone. 🙂
Despite getting lost several times due to misguided directions from our GPS app, we finally reached Pinto after about an hour’s drive from Taguig. It’s actually easier to just follow the map from their website. Hahaha! If we did so, it probably would’ve taken us only 30 minutes as traffic was quite light that day (another perk of staying in the city during a long holiday :)).
To get into the gallery, there is an entrance fee of Php150. This entrance fee gives you access to all 5 galleries, as well as to the upper and lower gardens.
Here is what we saw at Pinto:
Art sculptures and installations all over the place…
A charming and rustic chapel with many antique pieces I would love to have in my own home!
More sculptures and art in the garden…
These were kinda freaky and had a “My Precious” kinda vibe to them, but it was also quite visually interesting especially the way there were displayed against the foliage.
The architecture kind of reminded me of the structures you’d see in Texas or New Mexico (think: The Alamo). I love the use of stark white, especially against the vibrant art work :). According to Pinto’s website, the buildings were designed by Antonio Leano.
We found this plaque right outside the entrance of Gallery 1. Love the quote from Dr. Cuanang–the owner of Pinto–when he said, “This museum is dedicated to their art, to their dreams and to the times we live.” Well said! Did I mention that Pinto is purely a museum of contemporary Filipino art? No masters here. Instead, as its name implies, it is an open venue for all kinds of modern art practice. You’ll find a lot of new and up and comers here in the fields of painting, sculpture, and mixed media.
Personally, I think it is truly wonderful how places like these encourage more Filipino artists to create, by providing them a wonderful space to showcase their work. I also think it makes art more accessible to everyone, less serious or for the “intellectual”, and definitely more fun!
Here’s what we saw in Gallery 1…
I found the pieces to be quite dark and dreary–not my style at all. Hahaha! I appreciated Gallery 2 more as it was filled with art from some of my favorite contemporary artists–Elmer Borlongan, Plet Bolipata, and Rodel Tapaya.
The notorious Hari Sonik was on display in Gallery 2. I find this character so intriguing, yet disturbing at the same time. The H just finds him flat out freaky. Hahahaha!
I was so drawn to this Borlongan painting. Definitely not as “dark” as his others.
There’s also a very cute cafe inside Pinto. Too bad it was closed that day we were there. I read somewhere that the cafe is operated by Bizu during the weekends. I’m not too sure if that is still true, though :).
Going down the steps from the Pinto Cafe will lead you to Gallery 3. Again, there were more interesting artworks to see…
Can you believe these 2 different artworks were done by 1 artist? 🙂 Loving the reference to the jeepneys of old :).
This was one of my favorite pieces…
And now to the best part–Galleries 4 and 5. These two spaces had the most interesting pieces, and the nicest displays–truly, a visual feast! 🙂
Haha.
A very timely “year of the horse” sculpture by Plet Bolipata. I think there were 4 of her sculptures throughout the gallery! I loooove her art! Incidentally, Plet is Elmer Borlongan’s wife :).
By Leeroy New, another artist that I admire very much :).
Sweet ride :). Even the little one thought so :).
Before we get to Gallery 5, I would literally like to take a bathroom break. Yes, I did take pictures of their bathrooms, but only because they were so pretty, and so clean! Did I not tell you that there were just too many beautiful spaces in this place?!? This bathroom is proof! Hahahaha! And that turquoise door…Haaaay! Soooo loving it! 🙂
On to Gallery 5…
I was particularly drawn to these paintings by Emanuel Garibay too. Not like his usual paintings, these are very bright and colorful. I like the subject matter as well, especially the ones with the women in it :).
Throughout the gallery, you will find arched windows or doorways that open to spectacular views such as this one.
“Sit at your own risk.” A living room made entirely out of paper!
There were also these 2 rooms we found at the last gallery–one looked like a bedroom, the other a den-slash-living room. It made me wonder if they were meant to be used for gallery guests, or were they simply a space to display artwork as well? Both rooms were very pretty :).
What else is pretty at Pinto? The view, ofcourse 🙂
There are several rooftops in Pinto that give one a gorgeous view of the city. Definitely picture-worthy! And it was with this particular view that we ended our tour of the wonderful Pinto Art Gallery. Like I said, no regrets that we ended up spending our holiday in the city, as we were finally able to visit this gem of a place :)!
A Dose of Happy 