My Dubai Art Blog: The Greater Middle East Unveiled at Opera Gallery

I have always been vocal with my love for the arts. Wherever I go, visiting art galleries are always part of my itineraries. This is the reason why I fell in love with New York, San Francisco, Florence and Paris.

As a growing hub for arts such as furniture design, paintings, sculptures, crafts and even the performing arts, Dubai is becoming a heaven for art enthusiasts like me.

A few years back, art galleries (whether formal or informal ones) started sprouting in this rich sandy nation. Al Qouz Industrial Areas for one, has a lot of thriving art galleries from independent artists in the region. If you are looking for a more formal gallery, The Gate Village in DIFC surely is a place you would like to visit.



Just recently,I was invited to an art exhibit launch at the Opera Gallery in DIFC where contemporary collections from artists in the Middle East are now being displayed. Art works from Cairo, Tehran, Baghdad, Istanbul and other parts of the region were curated to unveil a rich and vibrant exhibition.







The exhibition features  artworks from some well-known artists and curators like Yousef Ahmad, Arzu Akgun, Samira Alikhanzadeh, Mahi Binebine, Vahid Danaeifar, Morteza Darehbaghi, Reza Derakshani, Mohammad Ehsai, Ali Esmaeilipour, Hossein Fassih, Golnaz Fathi, and many more.





This is my favorite piece by Ali Esmaeilipour

Personally, I really love contemporary art because it doesn’t box you in any genre and style..I call it feel free art! I was impressed with how these artworks were put and worked together, maybe it’s the (non judgemental) artists in me talking.

If you are planning on an art wagon trip, do drop by the Opera Gallery from the 24th of April till  the 6th of May 2014 and check out The Greater Middle East Unveiled.

For more info you can call at +971 4 323 0909 or you can check their website here:  http://www.operagallery.com/ang/middle-east/dubai-difc.html

Continuing my little adventure in San Francisco (Travel Blog: I LOVE SAN FRANCISCO!!! An Intro to the City!) we headed off to my friend Clarie’s house in Bay Point. This was our resting stop—our place of refuge (ooh I want them to adopt me). 

With all my stay in the United States, this is the only place where I will be living with an old friend (well,actually the only place where I will not pay to have a roof over my head)—-and it is by far the BEST.

I was transported to the set of Desperate Housewives (Wisteria Lane). The quiet suburbs was really quiet…peaceful and totally different from the city life. As someone who lives in Dubai this place can be considered as a retreat camp site —as what I say initially —- it is a place of refuge ^^.

Aside from that, let us add my friend in the picture! She is the mother of everything creatively hospitable. I remember when we were in college, we always admire her creative skills in making her own invitation and greeting cards cards, table presentations,..arts and crafts —and living in San Francisco only honed her passion and believe it or not (but really believe it) most the pottery works (aside from the white ones from IKEA) she made them all. Whew!! (again—-adopt me please).

We were welcomed with a “thanksgiving-ish” dinner. Truly a great feast with great friends. We just sat around the table and catch up for the whole 7 years that we haven’t seen one another. To top it all, we got a whole set of toiletry basket waiting for us on our bed (whew).

I stayed in the study room while my friend DF took the guest room. Inside my room, you can never deny that an architect is living in this house. I told myself “so this is what an architect’s room should look like”…nothing like my room, that is for sure (for a moment there, I doubted my chosen profession).

As part of our catching up series (^^), on our trip the following day, our first stop was the art school where Clarie took her Masters in Architecture. The California College of Art.

I’ve been dreaming of getting in one of the arts school in San Francisco. When I was in my university, I have a lot of brochures of different academies and programs for the arts (in San Francisco)

This campus is really what I am expecting an art college should be. I think this is what my college (UP College of Architecture) wants to achieve. The moment you stepped inside the campus, you can feel the creativity oozing —— at times very intimidating, but I pretended not intimidated and just keepin’ it cool, well, this is my element after all.  

Several sculptural pieces hanging by the roof surrounded the place, creating a modern museum like environment. There were also a lot of student projects displayed in open areas which made it very interesting. I just imagine how crazy busy the campus can be on a regular day. 

All in all, I was so amazed on how my friend blended in San Francisco. It clearly shows that this city is a city for artists like us. This particular reason made me chose San Francisco as my favorite city in the US. I feel at home here (the weather is terrible though).

This was just the beginning of our San Francisco trip. We’ve gone to a lot of places which I am excited to share to everyone in the next blog.

Travel Blog: San Francisco ARTS And Some Catching Up With FRIENDS

Event Blog: Noon Art Boutique Hotel Apartments and Gallery Launching

Last February 10, I was privileged to be invited to the launching (ribbon cutting) event of a new boutique hotel in Al Barsha, Dubai. The boutique hotel is an ‘art’ inspired hotel apartment, the first of its kind in Dubai.

During my travels, I have seen a lot of boutique hotels, hostels and B&Bs with their dash of artistic touches. So, when I was researching about Noon Art Boutique Hotel Apartments and Gallery, I was really excited. I think it is time for Dubai to invest in such hotels, as tourism booms in this region.

Noon Boutique Hotel Apartments and Gallery, showcases works and visions from 3 Arabic artists, Dr. Najat Meky (Emirati), Mr. Ali Hassan (Qatari) and Mr. Khaled Ben Simane  (Tunisian). All 45 apartments in the hotel were divided among the 3 artists to design and create.

Situated just a walk away from The Mall of The Emirates, I easily found the boutique hotel (of course I asked around and the map provided really helped).

The launching event was pretty much very interesting. There were a lot of press and yes, bloggers who were invited. We gathered in the lobby and marveled at artists in action and creating masterpieces in an instant.

After a few minutes, we were all ushered in groups to have a tour of the hotel. Each artist’s creations can be seen in the room’s lighting design, dining tables, fabrics, cupboard doors, hanging artwork pieces and even the designs of the head boards.

One particular artist, Mr. Khaled Ben Simane infused the four elements of nature in his designs, according to our guide, he assigned air for the windows, fire for the kitchen, earth for the rug and water for the bathroom.

(here are headboards from the different rooms designed by the 3 featured artists)

Another interesting part of the hotel is their art gallery, I like that Noon pushes in promoting arts in the region. The gallery caters to veteran artists and even those who are still starting to create their mark.

It was a nice final stop for our tour, I was able to meet some bloggers and discussed (blogging) stuff. I always love to hear how bloggers came into creating their own blogs and other things under the sun. My friend from www.Bloggersinthecity.com, Rachel (stuffbyrhey) and I enjoyed munching on the canapes as well (I always love this part of every event).

As someone who is a designer and an artist. I truly appreciate the concept of this hotel. Although, I must say, some people will like the design of the room while others will not, but the fact is you can surely find artistry in each room. I would have loved to see  how the artist can transform the whole room and not be limited to curtains, fabrics, lighting and head boards, that will be very interesting for sure (maybe in their future developments). 

Now we are done with the tour, the true test will be the customer service. I haven’t tried it yet but I will update this blog after spending a night or two here in the future.

You can check out Noon Art Boutique Hotel Apartments and Gallery’s website in www.noonhotel.com and their facebook page in this link.

Have you visited this hotel? Share with us your experience! ^^

 

Our Future Ancestral Home! All For My Beautiful Lola

There is a saying in our field (architecture), that the worst client you’ll ever encounter is your family. Well, I surely had a taste of that.

Clients in general are a bit of a handful, but when they are family, there is a bigger push. Creating a design for my grandma’s house that can fit the whole ‘Bonuan’ clan (if we thought of going for a vacation at once) was a bit stressful, with my full time job, my business and activities on the side, it was hard to have it squeezed in from the beginning. 

The beauty about this project though, is that I know that I am doing it for the person (people) I love. In fact, the enthusiasm of the whole family was contagious, and to see them happy makes me happy also (naks!).

This house is a project of the whole clan, we decided to buy the lots around our ancestral house and build a huge house that can fit all of us. Most of us are outside the Philippines and we though it will be nice to have a place to stay whenever we thought of going back for a vacation.

Also, my lola (grandma) being the queen of the family (hihi) can’t stay in a small shack, it should fit such royalty.

With three architects in the family, we have came up with a good plan (basically it was really my uncle who did all the work, he is really good). With inputs coming from my aunts in Canada and Australia, I think we managed to achieve our dream ancestral house.

I am excited for this project to be finished and see everyone again back in the Philippines.

I have finished a draft of the exterior, and I must say, I am liking it!

Next stop, I will do a design for the interiors. I’ll post them soon…first I need to find a day to squeeze it! ^^

Event Blog: Design Days --> My Eye Candy

Last March I had a privilege to be invited to the opening night of Design Days Dubai (see link here). This really kicked my inspiration+ creative bone to a high.

With all the furniture (and art pieces) exhibited it feels like I am in what one part of my heaven map.

Compared to last year’s exhibition, this year focused on a more contemporary approach, which is not a bad thing (I just missed seeing some very expensive vintage pieces).

This is a very interesting design for a clock..this is called “clock clock” designed by Humans Since 1982 and currated by Victor Hunt. This unique approach for time management really got my attention. These are actually series of clocks placed together to create a bigger clock. I still cant grasp how this is working.

Another interesting piece is “Jari” by Jihoon Ha. This is a modular, repetitive sculptural piece that works brilliantly as a seat. Perfect I must say!

I also love this stringed art display. This are actual scaled furniture outlines stringed from the ceiling. Although you cannot really seat on them but they are brilliantly installed to create a real 3d sketch.

I cant help to watch how they are producing pearl (a bit brutal I must say—-poor oyster)

After seeing their work, I instantly became their number 1 fan. I want to ruin their partnership and turn it into trio! Studio Swine made my vision possible. What they are actually doing is what was planning to do after working here in Dubai and manage my own design studio. To know more about them visit their website here.

All in all my eyes were satisfied with the buffet of creativity displayed—and of course, I do have some favorite pieces..cant wait for next year’s event!

Event Blog: Turning it Orange! Banyan Tree Cafe Phuket Thailand

One of my “neophyte days” events that I did was a grand wedding by an Indian couple in Phuket. It was a very festive event, with 5 days of parties and celebrations  and parties…and more parties, surely the guests really had fun (we had fun also).

One of the night party that was tasked to me was to create a cozy, warm (not that all out rave party) venue. A place where guests can really talk and chill-out with one another. I think the key word there was “chill-out”.

Our venue was the Banyan Cafe in the Banyan Tree Hotel. We played and got inspired with the orange and brown combination like an “Hermes” box. We painted the existing columns in tangerine and wrapped around a rich brown ribbon (wrapping those ribbons were a bit of a headache). We also played around with fabrics of the same motif and created a festive look from a plain resort type cafe.

This is the schematic sketch that I did for the main entrance area. We framed the existing buddha statue with fabrics and ribbons to create a vertical reference. For carpets, instead of red, we thought of using a bolder shade ——yes it is orange!

Here is a schematic sketch for the whole  venue.  We installed a dance floor and a DJ table. Also we created pocket areas for seating (lounge type)

The set-up was a bit nerve wracking, I started coordinating everything early in the morning with painting started a couple of days before, except for the dance floor. The weather was not participating also because it was cloudy with a bit of a drizzle. All in all we did it (Thank God)! It was awesome because we stayed true on what we have designed and it turned out pretty chic and classy.

It was a blessing to have worked with these lovely folks. I learned a lot for my first big event gig. After this, I did a lot of events but I must say, this team has a big place in my heart.