The following is lifted from the information sheet about Merc Tenorio:
Merc Tenorio is a poet, songwriter, self-taught painter, former teacher, and a disabled US Navy veteran. Her poetry has been published in various magazines, poetry websites, and newspapers. She is a member of American Society of Composers and Publishers (ASCAP) and Guam Filipino Artists (GFA). She has been conferred Resolution 261-33, a recognition by the 33rd Guam Legislature, for sharing her talent with Guam and the island’s art community.
Tenorio’s previous art exhibit, faces/places, at the Insular Arts Gallery in Agana Guam featured her charcoal works (charcoal is her preferred medium). A recluse, it took long years before she decided to reemerge and hold another exhibit. Her recent art exhibit, textures/gestures, at Nissan Guam Infiniti Gallery and Tumon Sands Plaza featured her acrylic paintings, which showed her painstaking brush strokes as metaphor for life’s travails. Her style can be identified as realism, but she believes that what she paints on a canvas is her emotional connection toward a particular subject, be it a smiling human face that hides its gloom, an insignificant rock that longs to be noticed, a decaying leaf that holds on to life, a wilted flower that shows calm, a dry driftwood that searches for belongingness, and a lonely ocean wave that rises to touch the shore. The subject’s emotion is her emotion. Thus, Tenorio attempts to render it explicitly, without the vagueness of an abstraction.
As a poet and songwriter, Tenorio finds it therapeutic to write about loneliness, grief, and the reality of pain that results from loss, suffering, hopelessness, and spiritual emptiness. A suicide attempt survivor who still battles clinical depression, Tenorio has turned to painting as a form of distraction and therapy.
As a disabled military veteran, Tenorio hopes that through her art, she can reach out to other disabled veterans and to those who suffer from depression and other mental conditions, that they discover their own talent, which could be a form of healing, solace, and survival. Tenorio is a donor and volunteer for various charities, and has sold and auctioned off some of her paintings for the benefit of women veterans and mentally-ill patients.
Merc Tenorio’s Still/Here: A Solo Art Exhibition runs from June 5 to 19, 2019 at the Gateway Gallery.
For related entries, please read Sining Saysay: Philippine History in Art, Gateway Gallery Revisited, and Topiary Garden.
Here are the photos of some of the artworks featured in Merc Tenorio’s Still/Here: A Solo Art Exhibition at the Gateway Gallery:
Gateway Gallery Address:
Gateway Gallery is in the 5th Floor of Gateway Tower, Araneta Center, Cubao, Quezon City
Gateway Gallery Hours:
Monday to Sunday 10am to 7pm
Gateway Gallery Contact Number:
(02) 588 - 4092
Gateway Gallery Entrance Fee:
FREE!
How to get to Gateway Gallery:
1. Take the LRT-2 to Araneta Center-Cubao Station. The exit is adjacent to Gateway Mall. Take the elevator to the 5th floor or the escalator to the cinema lobby of Gateway Mall. It is to the left of the theaters when facing the ticketing area.
2. Take the MRT-3 to Cubao Station. Go to the bridgeway that connects Farmer’s Plaza to Gateway Mall. Take the elevator to the 5th floor and exit in the Gateway Tower. The Gateway Art Gallery is next to the Topiary Garden.