Arboreal Inspirations by Galerie Francesca

Doctors in Scotland can now legally prescribe interacting with nature as a medical therapy to reduce anxiety, heart disease, mental illness, and high blood pressure. Evan Fliescher for the BigThink writes, “If you spend 90 minutes of your day outside in a wooded area, there will be a decrease of activity in the  part of your brain typically associated with depression. Spending time in nature not only reduces blood pressure, anxiety, and increases happiness, but it reduces aggression, ADHD symptoms, improves pain control, the immune system, and—per a summary of research regarding the health benefits of nature—there’s much more we don’t know and are figuring out every day.” Though relatively new to Western medicine, the Japanese, since the 1980s, recognized the effectiveness of “forest therapy” (shinrin-yoku) in preventive healthcare, as well as an active therapy for a number of maladies. John Muir, the pioneering advocate of the US National Parks system wrote, “Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home. Wilderness is a necessity.” In the megalopolis that is Metro Manila, traffic jams, the frenetic pace of work, rising costs of goods, and a growing number of other causes create a very stressful environment. The lack of good and safe public parks prevent the vast majority of us, city dwellers from communing with nature, and enjoying its benefits. This, and advocating the conservation of nature, are the twin reasons for the two-man exhibition of painter Janddie Castillo and sculptor Jinggoy Salcedo at Galerie Francesca entitled Arboreal Inspirations.

Arboreal Inspirations brings the essence of nature to our homes through the depiction of trees in painting, by Janddie Castillo, and in sculpture by Jinggoy Salcedo. Castillo, who has had four solo exhibitions prior, is known for his signature painting style of building images by flicking paint on to canvas. An alumnus of the Far Eastern University, he has found renown for being the official artist of the Philippine Basketball Association for their 38^th Anniversary, after his clandestine portrait of the basketball player Mark Caguioa was seen and appreciated by the athlete. For this exhibit, Castillo creates a series of fourteen oil paintings on canvas of trees and two landscape paintings. The works have a pointillistic quality, as the images are built through successive layers of flecks of contrasting dark and vibrant secondary colors, giving the impression of the play of light at different times of the day. In some works, the light appears as though dispersed by a prism or by mist, creating an iridescent, rainbow-like quality to the image as a whole. The works evoke emotions ranging from joy to quiet solitude, which are what one feels when one is near nature, an effective balm to soothe the frayed nerves of us urban dwellers.