Lenore RS Lim at UN art show
By Ruben D.F. Defeo

I was in New York when the infamous love bug virus hit what before were the most impregnable and fortified corridors of power in the world, exacting a mind-blowing damage running to billions of dollars. The culprit was initially traced to have come from the Philippines where computer technology is yet at its infant stage. And boy, how we made news in America. We were electronically bannered in the running news bulletin at Times Square and Rockefeller Center. CNN was squeezing the news to the pulp by the hour. And the New York Times bandied the picture of Onel de Guzman in full color on the front page, with a jump inside where the content of Art Borjal's now controversial article on "Yes, the Filipino Can!" was mangled point by point.. The disconcerting pimple came in the face of another uncomfortable portrait of life in the Philippines -- group hostage-taking -- this time involving not only one group of hostages being kept by the Abu Sayyaf rebels, but two -- the celebrated one consisting of foreign tourists fished out from a Malaysian resort. Such that when Nina Ricci Alagao was bruited to be a serious contender to the Miss Universe crown, hope suddenly materialized in the air. This might just be the needed cosmetics to the tarnished picture the country was being portrayed, including of course the merciless censure President Estrada got from both Newsweek and Time. We eagerly glued ourselves to the evening satellite feed from Cyprus. But politics might have wielded its ugly hand in the country's quest for the third Universe crown. Nina Ricci did not even make it to the top ten. The only consolation was the lip service she got from the anchorwoman saying that she, together with Miss Germany, was an early crowd favorite. But as we say, after the storm comes the sun. So here's good news. Not surprisingly, it comes from the arts. It looks like every time there is animadversion in our national life, art can be one great source of mitigation. Just witness: aside from this bit of good news, here is Raymond Red quietly bagging the Palme D'Or at the recent Cannes Film Festival for short film. New York-based artist Lenore R.S. Lim was recently chosen as one of the 50 artists to participate in a mammoth art exhibit at the United Nations slated to open today, June 5, and to run until June 25. She is the only Filipino artist to be included in the international list. The exhibit titled Progress of the World's Women expounds through the various media now available to artists the ways in which women have been moving towards equality worldwide. For the UN art show, Lim has opted to focus on the issue of comfort women in the Philippines. Two works represent her in the exhibition. Both feature the powerful image of a crushed fabric, presumably part of a woman's apparel. In "Spirit to Survive, a 15" x 13" solar etching, Lim depicts the resolve of comfort women to overcome the shame and humiliation of rape and sexual slavery they were subjected to by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. The image, done in largely heavy black lines with swaths of color, eloquently portrays the depth of despair and suffering these women went through to survive. It is worthy to note here that for this particular work, she employs the solar etching process, a technique she learned from master printmaker Dan Walden. She is now in the stage of her artistic career where she favors non-toxic techniques in printmaking. The second work is "Violations 1," a large 17" x 10 1/4" black and white etching. Equally powerful, it outlines the specter of pain and suffering of thousands of helpless women forced into indignities and shame by a cruel and merciless invading army. The haunting black image that dominates the work is a most compelling symbol of the tragic human rights violation against women. It also conveys the long and dark hours comfort women have spent in shame. Lim's detailed interest in women's apparel stems from her earlier forays in printmaking. For her print exhibit at the Philippine Center Gallery in New York in 1998, she celebrated the maternal tradition of the Philippines by showcasing the traditional dress of 19th century Filipinas. Using fragments of the traditional terno, panuelo, baro't saya and mantilla, all typical attire for ladies during the Spanish period, Lenore -- through her colorful and compelling photo-etchings and prints -- succeeded in recapturing the deep passion of Filipino women and their integral place in Philippine society. Born and raised in the Philippines, Lim came to the United States in 1975, where she spent eight months in Alabama, then moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She and her family have been in New York City since 1988. An accomplished and forward thinking printmaker, she finished her bachelor of fine arts at the UP College of Fine Arts in 1967. She also attended the School of Visual Arts in New York, taking courses in printmaking and computer art from 1990 to 1995. Lim's artistic technique is a vibrant mixture of printmaking and high technology. One of her highly evolved artistic concerns starts with photocopying or flatbed scanning the raw materials from her art. Focusing on a particularly evocative portion of the resulting printout, she then alters the contrast, for m, texture, and other aspects of the image on the photocopier or with computer design software. She creates a plate to print from which to print. In other pieces, she uses soft ground technique to create a plate, etching a combination of textures into it to create a composition. The plate is then inked, sometimes using stencils to create a flow of overlapping colors and forms. With these two bases for the print, she freely experiments with the interaction of the pigments with the plate, as well as the pressure of the printmaking press. While her inspirations are often from the past, her methods are distinctly cutting edge. By doing so, she has found a way to meld her traditional inclinations with high technology and the standard printing press. Lim has focused on printmaking since 1990, each year making great strides and exploring new techniques. In January 1999, she was awarded the prestigious Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. She has exhibited her work extensively in Austria, Canada, Iraq, Italy, Jordan, the Philippines and all over the United States. At present, she is working on two relatively contemporary print techniques, the chine collé and carborundum monoprint. Chine collé, a method of applying thin Eastern papers to a printed image for added color or tonal definition, suits well her nature prints. On the other hand, her water-based carborundum monoprints are pinstriped by the 1938 "Black & Red Series" of Joan Miro, the artist's response to the then social and political upheavals of the Spanish Civil War. As a professional printmaker, she works at The Printmaking Workshop, also known as Blackburn Studio, where most printmakers from around the world go to do their prints when they are in New York. The workshop was founded 50 years ago by master printmaker Bob Blackburn, now in his 80s. In July, Lim is scheduled to facilitate a printmaking workshop together with the equally eminent Filipino printmaker Manuel Rodriguez to introduce etching to the Society of Pilipino American Artists in New York.