Exploring Anita Magai Hall's 'Three Women with Baskets': A Feminist Perspective

I am flet made thein professor of art studies at the University of the Philippines in this episode of cultural

cash online I'll be talking about a 1976 piece by Anita magai Hall in the cultural center of the Philippines 21

a.m. collection entitled three women with [Music]

baskets [Music] Anita magai ho is a pioneering artist in

so many ways as the only woman in the prear group of 13 moderns founded by Victoria

idades she is a pioneering modernist as an artist she's one of those who took on the challenge of

painting in egg tempera amum she studied at the cran Brook Academy of Art in Michigan her deaf handling of egg Tempa

a medium more difficult and harder to control than oil has been associated with the artist

[Music] name magai Hall dedicated her entire career to painting women drawing

inspiration from the farm hands Fishers and laborers in zambales where she spent her childhood summer

vacations her canvases are replat with sturdy peasant women V iously engag in harvesting fruit catching fish

interacting in the marketplace among many other chores that involve the labor of human hands in agricultural

lands in the three women with baskets the women are similarly shown at work but caught in a moment of transition

from one movement to the next it is a momentary pause of keeping still in anticipation of the next

activity probably that of racing the bilao or basket and tending to the business of separating the chaff from

the grains of rice with eyes downcast refusing to meet the viewer's Gaze they inhabit a

self-contained Universe of carefully crafted women bonding in silent Sisterhood who are and I quote from the

late art historian Alice IO strong of limb and spirit rendered in bold decisive lines and simplification

of forms such as the Triangular cchips and swiftly formed arms and legs yet all with strong gestural quality despite

their abbreviated Renditions unquote the colors of the scene in tree women with baskets are predominantly

pastel as seen in the pleasant shades of green on the skirts and the background Greenery a calm pastoral setting but one

that is interrupted by the shock of fiery black in the middle we learn from Alfredo rossa's

monograph in pra of women that the blacken trunks are made out of ink that the artists build on the blank canvas as

the artist describes it if you throw the ink on the canvas and you throw water then throw oil and these all rush and

run into each other and you will be surprised to see how beautiful the image of rocks

[Music] emerges this technique of creating representational images from accidental

configurations shares Affinity with those of other artists throughout the history of art among them the dais and

serialists like Andre Mason who created drawings based on accidental patterns made by dropped pieces of string on the

floor makaio inspiration on the other hand was Chinese ink painting to which a Jewish friend introduced her when she

was in Canada from 1969 to 1976 the technique involved spilling Chinese ink on paper and letting the

revets of ink suggest an image and the direction the painting will take I caught from the artist from roses's

monograph after it is done you will be surprised to see the rocks by the sea or the logs in a forest of course you must

improve on the Rocks she [Music] says after the initial Fascination

however she lost interest in the experiment because she was not thinking anymore she says and it was the spilled

ink that was doing it unquote it was the ink dictating the painting and not the artist this refusal to let chance take

over the creative process completely is evident in an interview with the art critic Sid Rees in

1986 where she revealed that while she sketches directly on the canvas with charcoal she never depends on what she

refers to as chamba or lck at the outset she has a clear idea of how a painting will look like when it's

finished at the same time she allows a certain amount of chance in abstracting her figures by working around accidents

like The Accidental Loop of paint when it's splattered on a canvas as she puts it

[Music] this tension between being in full control and allowing an element of

chance to take over aspects of a work is seen in this 1976 piece which is one of 25 in the ink plot series she produced

in the' 70s while she was looking for new directions in her art the figures are composed in

symmetrical formation but not exactly in the foreground two figures years one post frontally and the other sideways

frame the blackened trunks that in turn frame the central figure who caught in a pensive contrapuntal

pose the trios dresses are color coordinated off-white for the tops and cchips light green for the skirts which

are repeated like variations on the Musical theme in the background that spills over and bleeds out of the

picture plane the color scheme would have been monochromatic if not for the dark trunks

that look like Flames Rising past the Lush branches onto the sky Beyond with the trees gnarled Roots melding together

in a massive exuberant Heap at the bottom this Frame within a frame composition makes me feel as though I am

being drawn into or sucked in between the blackish Su flame of the trunks decent ease which have been more intense

had the scale been life siiz is evoked most probably because the ink plots look out of place in the bucolic

setting in his assessment of the ink blot series Ross has similarly Express discomfort at the disparity between the

spontaneity of the ink blots on one hand and a carefully choreographed and studiously rendered women on the

[Music] other but I see this seeming incompatibility as but one instance of

an other world one that can be viewed from what the feminist writer Teresa Delores refers to as an elsewhere a

quiet place of women going about their business but also a space of tension and resistance where women like the artists

are in full control and I cot her of their own movements and gestures their expressions of happiness and

frustrations their diligence and shortcomings their Joy of living I know well for after all I am one of

[Music] them [Music]

thank you for joining me in this episode of cultural cash [Music]

online [Music] [Music]