“Filipina as Artist and Feminist,” an exhibition of work by prominent Filipina artists, will be on display at ETSU’s Slocumb Galleries from Feb. 18-March 14 in celebration of International Women’s Month and Women’s History Month (March).
It is sponsored by ETSU’s Women’s Studies Program in collaboration with Slocumb Galleries, the Department of Art and Design, Tri-Iota Student Organization and the Student Government Association.
It is also coordinated with the Jade Tree, a local Filipina-owned curio shop, to reach out to the Filipino community of the greater Johnson City area.
An artist’s talk, film showing and closing reception will be held Thursday, March 13, from 4-7 p.m. in the Ball Hall auditorium and Slocumb Galleries respectively.
The exhibition explores the development of women’s visual art in the Philippines as a vital part of the feminist movement and its advancement. It presents art that manifests the values and struggles of women – their plight, motivations and other contemporary feminist issues.
The artists represented, who have exhibited in the Philippines and around the world, are “pioneers in steering the visual dialogue in addressing women’s issues in culture and the arts” and were selected based on their “significant contributions in the development of Philippine visual art and their commitment to the feminist agenda.”
Most are leaders in women’s organizations – including the KALAYAAN Women’s Group – and community-based collectives and have “consistently advocated forums and opportunities to discuss, debate and alter the male-dominant artistic structure toward women’s empowerment.”
Three are founding members of the KASIBULAN Philippine Women Artists Collective.
Visual artist and curator Imelda Cajipe-Endaya was part of the social realist art movement in the Philippines during the 1970s and ’80s. Her earlier works dealt with the harsh reality of women and children as victims of poverty and violence, while her recent works focus on issues faced by women migrant workers and diaspora.
Brenda Fajardo, a painter, educator and art administrator, explores imagery indigenous to the Philippines and text with contemporary sentiments.
Using tarot card symbolism, humor and satire, she depicts women of various status levels and temperaments. Included in the Slocumb Galleries exhibition are several large-scale paintings from her tarot card series that focus on subjects of migration, prostitution and identity.
Mixed media sculptor and poet Tala Isla-Contreras depicts women as the “embodiment of nature, mother, nurturer, babaylan (priestess) . . . and warrior.” For the “Filipina as Artist and Feminist” exhibit, she has sent her mixed media assemblage “Queen of the Kitchen No More,” which includes sculptures from retrieved materials.
In addition to her active participation in KASIBULAN and KALAYAAN, she is a founding member of the community-based art collective Daambakal Sculptors.
The Philippines’ most prominent female sculptor, ceramic artist Julie Lluch, is also a performance artist and writer. Her life-sized ceramic sculptures are “portraitures, mostly autobiographical, yet depict(ing) universal issues that concern women, such as marital relationships, motherhood and the repressive expectations (of) being female.”
Her work “Philippine Gothic” pictures the artist with her estranged husband and their dog in a stoic stance, revealing the complex nature of marital relations.
Slocumb Galleries Director Karlota I. Contreras-Koterbay curated the exhibition “to address issues of cultural diversity and gender empowerment by employing art as agency.”
Both the exhibit and the closing evening’s activities are free and open to the public.

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