Aya Sunga Askert (left,) Mary Grace Svensson (center,) Helen Svendgaard (right) come together for a one-of-a-kind celebration of Filipino talent in Europe.

THREE VOICES, ONE SHOW

Despite their differences in style, approach, and chosen mediums, the collections came together well as a single exhibit. Aside from celebrating the three artists who founded the FAAS, the exhibit also serves as a celebration of the diversity of creative ways Filipinos can and have expressed themselves outside their home culture. The exhibit met guests from all over the cosmopolitan Swedish capital and introduced many to the rapidly developing arts scene among Sweden’s Filipino community.

FAAS FORWARD

The exhibit, of course, is only the tip of the iceberg for the three women and the organization they started. FAAS, in its mission to build an active community out of the visual, performing, and literary artists residing in Sweden with Filipino heritage, is engaged in a variety of other activities beyond the conventional exhibits and auctions. FAAS offers assistance for its members’ personal projects; teaches the Filipino language to children; engages in translation work and conducts workshops.

It’s mandate, as it stands today, is to cultivate the growing interest in arts among Filipinos in Sweden by providing them exposure, mentorship, patronage and support, empowering aspiring artists to build careers out of their talents and passion.

FAAS hopes that, in building a community in Sweden and in celebrating Filipino art and artists as it has at Galleri Bellman, it would be an example for Filipino expatriate communities in Europe and around the world. To discover more of what FAAS is up to, visit their Instagram account @ filipinoartists.sweden. R&W

THREE WOMEN, THREE VOICES

Metamorfoses (meaning Metamorphosis or Transformation) was a collection of assemblages, an artistic technique that collects, arranges, and adds onto found objects turning them into works of art. Aya Sunga-Askert’s works seemed to whirl and flail in all directions at the gallery space: black paper buttrflies took wing and filled a room, white and gold faces projecting shiny metal tendrils, sculptures of black hands leaving silver trails that looked both alive and frozen in time.

Colors, on the other hand delivers exactly as the title promised: vibrant bursts and splashes of color ordered into bold and playful geometries. Mary Grace Svensson’s paintings displayed stunning emotional intensity in diverse ways - some almost childlike in their whimsy, others evoking the abundance of the natural world, and
still others are deeply intimate depictions of passion, womanhood, and motherhood.

Last but by no means the least, Helen Svendgaard’s Himmel och Jord collection of paintings and photography was no less vibrant but utilised color in subtler ways. Straddling the line between Impressionism and Expressionism, the artworks in the collection seemed to draw the spectator inwards into the canvas. The collection depicts dream-like landscapes and waterscapes, the features almost but never quite melting into each other. This and the stark use of texture in many of the pieces give the paintings a kind of motion and rhythm.

Helen Svendgaard