Bohol Times On Gene Lungay

Kalye… Kariton… Kabataan… http://www.boholtimes.com/daan2004/jan182004/events.htm

Gene Lungay’s 1st solo exhibit FOR the month of January 2004, Syano Art Link will be featuring Boholano artist Noel H. B. Gene Lungay in his 1st solo exhibit in Manila. The show “Kalye… Kariton… Kabataan…” focuses on his personal/direct experiences with “Street Children” through impressionist paintings in oil, aquarelle and ink washes. The exhibition opens formally on the 11th of January, 2004 and will run until the 11th of February, 2004. A prolific artist and visual arts educator, Gene Lungay expresses his works in a soft painterly guile, a style handed over from four generations of artistic lineage. “Kalye… Kariton… Kabataan…” projects a visual poetry of the lives of children living in the streets of Manila, and the artist has carefully chosen certain emotional and spiritual points to detach from the stereotype mode of projecting the misery and depression of people in poverty. Instead, Gene focuses on the fragile joy, innocence, and the vulnerability of his subjects, as they are back-dropped in the lethargic mood of a city under tension and the harshness of a disregardful society. “Kalye… Kariton… Kabataan…” is never intended to expose political retributions in any sense, but rather to raise human awareness on social transformation. Gene Lungay, an artist by birth believes in a moral responsibility in art.

He states: “Art has somehow managed to evolve into a higher form of medicine. Art no longer exists to expose our pain, fears and gloom. But rather, art has transformed into a force that heals.” Currently, Noel “Gene” Lungay teaches free art lessons to “Street Children” in Manila, and every summer for the last eighteen years, conducts art workshops for deaf-mute children in his home island-province, Bohol. For further details, please contact Nunelucio Alvarado Syano Art Link, Shanghai St., Better Living Subdivision, Paranaque, Metro Manila, Tel.: +63 (2) 821-3904, e-mail [email protected] or contact the artist himself at [email protected]. (PR)