​The World According to Charlie Co: Drawings and Works on Paper​

In line with the celebration of National Arts Month this February, the Ateneo Art Gallery is pleased to present a new exhibition, The World According to Charlie Co: Drawings and Works on Paper. The exhibit formally opened last February 9, Sunday, 4PM at Ateneo Art Gallery’s Wilson L Sy Prints and Drawings Gallery.

Charlie Co continues to chronicle his world and environment through the graphic medium of drawing. In The World According to Charlie Co, the exhibition presents his drawings and works on paper collected in over nearly four decades of artistic practice. These illustrations record his life in Bacolod, his views toward global and environmental issues, and other current socio-political concerns. Often vibrant and allegorical in his works, Co has used drawing for many years to process his own personal experiences thus, he considers it integral to his own creative practice. By recalling the images that he had seen, the emotions, and experiences connected to it, Charlie Co creates his own reality through drawing.

The World According to Charlie Co: Drawings and Works on Paper runs until 5 July 2020. Featured works include selected pieces from the collection of the museum, the artist and from private lenders.

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Charlie Co (b.1960, Bacolod City) is a Filipino contemporary visual artist based in Negros Occidental. He held his first solo exhibition in 1983 and has since been known for works with strong socio-realist themes rendered in expressionist and surrealist modes. Co has exhibited in numerous countries and has represented the Philippines in prestigious international events such as the Asian Modernism exhibition at the Japan Foundation Asian Cultural Centre in Tokyo and the 23rd Sao Paolo Biennial in Brazil. He received the Thirteen Artists Award from the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 1990.

In the 1980s, he co-founded the Black Artists of Asia (BAA), a Bacolod-based group that helped bring public attention to the plight of sugarcane farmers or sakadas and other underprivileged sectors. Together with his peers, Charlie has been instrumental in encouraging growth among artist communities in the Visayas specifically through their art biennial initiative, the Visayan Visual Arts Exhibition and Conference or VIVA EXCON, which is now celebrating its 30th year.

In 2005, Charlie Co co-founded Orange Gallery in Bacolod City with Victor Benjamin Lopue as a venue for young contemporary artists and curators. It has since expanded to Orange Project, the center of a thriving art district for visual arts, film and media-based practices.

MEDIA MENTIONS:

Cartellino: Looking at The Times Through The Eyes of Charlie Co