Moving Pieces Together
Norlie Meimban’s Apron takes us through a slice of Vemma’s day. As soon as she wakes up, she wears an apron before she goes through her daily routine, marking tasks off her list as she goes about doing her chores. She takes care of herself first, then carries out her household duties. Cleaning, washing and ironing clothes, cooking and serving food, buying groceries and walking the dog are actions isolated on canvas, with a short film connecting the scenes and rounding up all the works in less than two minutes.
Vemma is an Overseas Filipino Worker that the artist met in Hong Kong. Hers is a story of hope and adaptability, and gives a sampling of how a domestic worker lives abroad. She takes on her role as nurturer and caregiver with pride, knowing that she is earning enough for her labors. Though we are familiar with aprons and how they provide protection to the wearer, or more specifically the wearer’s clothing, we tend to associate it with motherhood, wifely duties, home and family. But what of a person distanced from family out of a personal decision to find a job outside her native country?
In Meimban’s artworks, the apron becomes the armor of a professional as she does housework not as an act of subordination, but as a well-paying service career. No need to get into the details of family, because it becomes a movable element, the employer’s household substituting for home. The process of creating is highlighted, as well as the silent satisfaction one feels when working for a living, no matter how menial the job seems. A painting usually shows its viewer a moment, captured and framed, but in Meimban’s work, each piece is a progression of moments in a specific environment, showing how one small movement leads to the next. The artist uses his experience in the animation industry to create drawings that are layered and multiplied with small increments of change, with the lines’ swirls, overlaps and tangent points developing into abstracted details.
Real life blurs as the figure moves from one side of canvas to the other, with the viewer treated to a dissection of what we deem to be a mundane, everyday task. The use of photography and photo editing applications are prevalent in the local art scene to make things easier, but with the use of Meimban’s paintbrush, he is espousing a return to the organic versus the machinated, perhaps with respect to Vemma who uses her own hands in the accomplishment of her tasks.
The figure is not fleshed out, but perhaps it is not needed, as one of the artist’s intentions is to divvy up an activity into segments and splicing them together as a means of understanding movement, form and execution. The short film is another aspect of this practice, or perhaps a new direction for his paintings. In the process of creating Apron, Meimban also touches on defying the negative social stigma related to domesticity and affording respect to the one wearing the object in question. The apron is visible in the pieces not only as a professional accessory, but it also signifies comfort, a sense of preparedness and pride in the fulfilment of responsibilities with humility and grace.
Norlie Meimban graduated with a degree from the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts. A Painting major, he has exhibited his works not only in Manila and various cities in the Philippines; he has also recently participated in the 2017 Singapore Art Apart Fair 9th Edition and the Asian Contemporary Art Fair in Hongkong. He joined the Pulao Ketam International Art Festival in Malaysia in 2016 and the Cevio Art Haus Group Show in Hong Kong in 2015. In 2011, he participated in Neoart Pinoy in the Philippine Center New York, USA. He has also shown his works in SUNJIN Gallery Singapore and Malaysia in 2010, exhibited twice at the Seattle Center, Washington (2007 and 2008) and once in Esteban Sabar Gallery in Oakland, California, USA.
Meimban is a three-time Finalist of the Philippine Drawing Society Competition, twice in Figurative Painting (2008 and 2009) and once in Drawing (2006). His Outstanding Award in the Bahaghari Art Exhibit and Honorable Mention in the Marian Year Art Competition in 1984 were then followed in 1989 when he won Honorable Mention in the Metrobank Art Competition, winning Third Place the next year and garnering the Honorable Mention award again in 1996. He is most recently one of the Jurors Choice awardees in the GSIS Painting Competition.