Thomas Moore linked to Filipino art: Nostalgia

Today the Manila Standard published Cid Reyes' review of Filipino artist Roland Santos' new one-man show, Nostalgia : "Shrines of the spirit". In his review, Reyes says that Santos' exhibition shows "an intense longing for the past and the irretrievable. The show departs, however, in the choice of imagery, which is essential architectural in structure, but hint[s] at a vanished lifestyle of elegance and grace, stillness and quietude. . . What Roland Santos has evoked in these paintings is the enchantment of his own imagination and sensibility. Deeply attuned to the wonders of nature and the aesthetics of noble structures, he has caused these paintings into existence in order to create an enchanted world."

Referring to Thomas Moore's book, The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life , Reyes says that Moore wrote:

"of the necessity in connecting our lives with the spirituality of a place. He wrote of the garden as 'a proper place of the soul, where concerns of the soul for beauty, contemplation, quiet and observance take complete precedence over the busier concerns of daily life.' Of one's own domicile, he remarked: 'Home is an emotional state, a place in the imagination where feelings of security, belonging, placement, family, protection, memory and personal history abide.'
Next to nature, art is a primal source that opens us to the world of the spirit. In his vocation as an artist, Roland Santos regards his paintings not merely as acts of self-expression, but as shrines to the spirit, drawing us closer into an interior world of contemplation and enchantment."

Roland Santos' show Nostalgia opens today at Art-tique Gallery, Katipunan Ave., White Plains, Quezon City, Philippines.