Ancêtres/Ninuno is the latest in the long-running series of exhibits by Ivi Avellana-Cosio featuring works based on aspects of Philippine pre-history. Figuring prominently in the paintings are the 10th C. syllabary baybayin, more popularly, but erroneously called the alibata, as well as depictions of early Filipinos found in the Boxer Codex, the classic manuscript commissioned in 1595 by the Governor General of the Philippines Luis Pérez de Dasmariñas.

Avellana-Cosio also employs textile patterns and motifs from the different tribes like the Mandaya, T’boli, Yakan, Talaandig and Hanunoo Mangyan. Distinctive carvings, tattoos, make-up, and traditional designs found on clothing, jewelry, swords, scabbards and shields provide a rich source of material for the mixed-media works.  Starting with a basic color field, Avellana-Cosio superimposes the distinctive patterns and motifs, the characters of the baybayin, then embellishes the work with found objects. While the paintings are replete with the art of the non-Christianized, non-Hispanicized indigenous groups, they are not meant to be ethnographic documentations, but remain in the realm of the contemporary abstract idiom, providing the artist with a bridge that links the past to the present.

Ivi Avellana-Cosio has won awards for painting, printmaking and sculpture in national and regional competitions. She has exhibited extensively here and abroad since 1967 and is represented in local and international collections, both private and institutional.  A 1992 Project Grantee of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, she was also a Top Five winner in the 1997 Philip Morris Philippine Art Awards and a finalist in the Philip Morris ASEAN Art Awards in the same year.  In 1999, she was named Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan (for painting) by the City of Manila. She is listed in the International Who’s Who of Women.

Ancêtres/Ninuno is dedicated to the memory of the eminent art critic and xylographer Dr. Rod. Paras-Perez, who, upon seeing Avellana-Cosio’s first ethnic-inspired exhibit in the 1980’s, encouraged the artist to continue her exploration of this theme.

Ivi Avellana-Cosio’s exhibition “Ancêtres/Ninuno” runs from July 5 to 28, 2011, at the Alliance Française Total Gallery of the Alliance Française de Manille, located at 209 Nicanor Garcia St. formerly Reposo St.) Bel-Air 2, Makati City.