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Two years after emerging onto the Philippine visual-arts scene as a talented painter, actress-model Heart Evangelista continues to attract attention for her vivid artworks not only in the Philippines, but also overseas.
Case in point: There is a new exhibition of her paintings, called Oceans Apart, at the ArtistSpace of the Ayala Museum in Makati City. The exhibition, which is open to the public, opened on Jan. 30 and will run until Feb. 9.
According to the 31-year-old Evangelista, whose real name is Love Marie Ongpauco and signs her artworks under that name, she nurtured her passion for the visual arts when she was very young.
“I have always loved painting,” said Evagelista, whose husband is Sen. Francis Escudero. “It’s just that showbusiness came by chance…. That’s when, as Heart Evangelista, I could not resist the exciting opportunities it had offered to me in my teens.”
Her first exhibit, called I Am Love Marie, The Art and Works of Love Marie Ongpauco and also held at ArtistSpace, in May 2014 was well-received—an understatement, really, since it was sold out on the first hour of its opening day.
In art circles, a sold-out debut solo exhibit is considered phenomenal.
Since then, she held two more sold-out solo exhibits: one, titled Love Marie, at the Gallerie Joaquin in San Juan City in Sept. 2014; the other—Love Marie: A Solo Exhibition of a World-Class Filipina, Love Ongpauco—at the Chan Hampe Galleries of the renowned Raffles Hotel in Singapore, where she received much praise, in Feb. 2015.
Evangelista said that, although she started painting as a child, she later found it difficult to express her artistic side when she grew older—something that was made even more pronounced by her celebrity status.
“When you’re a public figure, you’re so open to all the criticisms (and) judgments,” she said in a previous interview with Bianca Rose Dabu of GMA News Online.
“It took a lot of courage for me to come out with a painting because I felt that people might say, ‘Ah, so ngayon nagpe-paint na siya. (So she’s painting now)’ Nauna ‘yung pagiging conscious ko (My being conscious came in first)… I really just had to be confident and fearless to come out with it,” she added.
Still, the artist in her prevailed. And the success of her first solo exhibit gave her enough confidence to pursue her passion and seek fulfillment in it.
Evangelista’s experience as an aritst gave her a kind of high that she could not understand. “The feeling is priceless. I just paint every day,” she said.
In her previous exhibits, the entertainer explored the different faces and emotions of women, surrounding them with ambiguous shapes, forms and colors that gave her works a pulsating vibrancy.
It has been observed that her painting style reminds one of Gustav Klimt and Frida Kahlo, and Galerie Joaquin has noted Paul Klee’s and Juvenal Sanso’s influence on her.
For her latest exhibit, Evangelista explores her childhood memories of fishing with her father, Rey Ongpauco. “It was kind of our thing. He had wanted a boy, which was why he brought me along hiking or fishing.”
She draws inspiration from what she remembers from those days. “I love painting fish. It’s just a never-ending, flowing idea, a fantasy place with so many colors exist,” she said in a recent interview with Jacky Lynne A. Olga of The Manila Bulletin. PNA
For more information on Oceans Apart or ArtistSpace, call gallery coordinator Lorraine Datuin at (632) 759-8288 or send an e-mail to artistspace@ayalafoundation.org.