CREATIVITY AND WORLD-CLASS VISION
Propelling. Progressive. Phenomenal. That’s Mandani Bay. It is such a pleasant surprise that with the formal opening of this world-class lifestyle destination comes the unveiling of the exclusively commissioned topnotch art of esteemed abstract contemporary artist, Professor Dennis Sio Montera, PhD. The Mandani Bay collection will be displayed in the lobbies of the first two towers. These pieces went through an in-depth screening and approval process of the Hong Kong -Taft Land in their base office abroad. The international validation of the chosen artworks is a testament of a Cebuano artist’s competence and a real celebration of creativity. The same select pieces on the walls are featured in the Mandani Bay 2021 desk calendar that highlights the company’s first collection of art in its Cebu properties.
Faith, mortality, distress, isolation, leadership, family, travel, adaptation, identity, changing social strata, and overall perseverance are among the abstract concepts of life that motivated Dr. Montera in the expression of his art. These are all evidenced on the acuity, richness and relevance of the notions in the varied abstract pieces in the collection. For the artist, it is such a liberating experience to productively finish the pieces amidst the generally felt pandemic scare, anxiety and uncertainty. Creativity and world-class vision as an art exhibition is the artist’s perspective in seeing with hope and positivity the other facet of one’s continued existence in today’s world.
Dr. Montera is consistently a very vigorous visual artist; he ties up his methods of painting, merging different processes in the past to forge a new level of composition generating non-figurative art. To be process-specific, surface texture is built-up using tar and texturizers that were utilized for his Master of Fine Arts thesis, juxtaposed this with a deductive process of revealing layered paint by scraping-off portions of the painting surface during his extended residency in Taiwan. Above and beyond, the central subject of his body of works is the abstraction of deep personal experiences and insights, and in the painting process, he sought to capture the essence of creating unpremeditated form with skillful randomness and aesthetic judgment. On a more personal note, his art represents the evolution of different chapters of his love affair with non-figurative expression, with each phase of life’s experiences translated into visual form that is brought to life through a contemporary manipulation of material, tool, and gestural techniques in contemporary painting.
Dr. Montera is currently a Full Professor at the University of the Philippines Cebu where he teaches Art History, Techniques, and Thesis Courses in the Fine Arts program of the College of Communication, Art, and Design. Concurrently, he is sitting as an elected Vice-Head of the National Committee on Visual Arts of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts in the Philippines. Armed with his international exposure in art exhibitions and cultural research, Sio Montera has garnered awards from major art competitions and is now staging this 25th solo exhibition with (and in) Mandani Bay. Undoubtedly, he stays significant in the national and local art scene over two decades as a well-respected artist and educator. His solid professional life as an artist is strongly backed by his Fine Arts degree (painting) from the University of the Philippines Cebu, Master in Fine Arts (Studio Art) from the University of the Philippines Diliman, and a Ph.D. in Creative Industries Design from National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan.
The works of the artist are available for viewing starting January 14, 2021 up until January 31, 2021 at Mandani Bay Showroom, Mandani Bay Avenue corner F.E. Zuelig Ave., Mandaue City, Cebu 6014.