SOLD!

An update on the exhibit, here's some of the paintings that was sold during the event :)

Sovereign II (2009) Oil on canvas

A Walk Out In The Rain (2009) Oil on canvas

My Sole Companion (2009) Oil on canvas

Tenderness (2006) Oil on canvas

Mystical Journey (2005) Oil on canvas

Give Us This Day (2006) Oil on canvas

Brothers In Arms (2006) Oil on canvas


3 AM Metro (2007) Oil on canvas

STAGES : The Opening Night

With Award-winning and world-renowned Kuwaiti artist, Mdme Thuraya Al Baqsami with my family :)

With Ms. Mariam Al Hashim of Pencil Advertising.


Guests viewing my "Tsinelas" series on the platform. It was a hit!

With good friends of mine, Mario Pulvida (Grey Advertising) & Joe Kawasaki (Integra Films)

Philippine Ambassador Ricardo Endaya giving his introductory speech.

With Mr. Mohammed Al Qadiri, General Manager of Kuwait's Famous Ghadir Gallery and Husband of Kuwaiti Artist Mdme. Thuraya Al Baqsami with My Wife Cecilia & Daughter Aliyah.


The ever supportive Philippine Embassy Staff :)

Art Afficionados, VIPs and some of the local elite at the show.


Diplomats from the ASEAN and the Australian Embassy.


Explaining one of my works to Art Patrons from Vietnam and Switzerland.


With Art Patrons Mdme. Arwa Afuni and Ms. Pamela from the American Universal School.

My angel Aliyah wearing a Filipiñana by Paul Cabral.


His Excellency Philippine Ambassador Ricardo Endaya being Interviewed by GMA TV.

It's ON! pt 2

STAGES
A One Man Show by Gilbert Semillano

"My painting is a recorded experience, a visual translation of various emotions and thoughts, which comes from deep within... driven out by passion and inspiration. Every year for me is a journey... An endless path... An indefinite find... In pursuit of perfection."

Beg For The Typhoon Victims

Here's a spot by DDB Philippines for McDonald's RMHC (Ronald McDonald's House Charities) Featuring Philippine Megastar Sharon Cuneta.

Sharon Cuneta (On V.O.):

If this is what I have to do for those who are in need,

If this is the only way to urge you to help.

I will.

It's ON!

My One Man Show, entitled "STAGES" is going to be held at the Failaka Hall, Radisson SAS Hotel on the 22nd (VIP) and 23rd (Public Viewing), October 2009. With Kuwait's Madame Thuraya Al Baqsami and Philippine Ambassador Ricardo Endaya as Guests of Honors! Awesomeness!

Polaroid is BACK!

When the Polaroid Factory closed in 2008, everybody thought that it would be the end of instant photography. But the Impossible Project, a group of former workers of the factory and Polaroid's groupies have decided to buy the brand and all the machines of the factory to put Polaroid back on the market for 2010!

Bebot Generation 1&2 -BEP

Rewind. A look at BEP's Bebot video.. Star-studded and purely Pinoy, what a classic :)

Art historians claim Van Gogh's ear 'cut off by Gauguin'

Vincent van Gogh's fame may owe as much to a legendary act of self-harm, as it does to his self-portraits. But, 119 years after his death, the tortured post-Impressionist's bloody ear is at the centre of a new controversy, after two historians suggested that the painter did not hack off his own lobe but was attacked by his friend, the French artist Paul Gauguin. According to official versions, the disturbed Dutch painter cut off his ear with a razor after a row with Gauguin in 1888. Bleeding heavily, Van Gogh then walked to a brothel and presented the severed ear to an astonished prostitute called Rachel before going home to sleep in a blood-drenched bed. But two German art historians, who have spent 10 years reviewing the police investigations, witness accounts and the artists' letters, argue that Gauguin, a fencing ace, most likely sliced off the ear with his sword during a fight, and the two artists agreed to hush up the truth. In Van Gogh's Ear: Paul Gauguin and the Pact of Silence, published in Germany, Hamburg-based academics Hans Kaufmann and Rita Wildegans argue that the official version of events, based largely on Gauguin's accounts, contain inconsistencies and that both artists hinted that the truth was more complex. Van Gogh and Gauguin's troubled friendship was legendary. In 1888, Van Gogh persuaded him to come to Arles in the south of France to live with him in the Yellow House he had set up as a "studio of the south". They spent the autumn painting together before things soured. Just before Christmas, they fell out. Van Gogh, seized by an attack of a metabolic disease became aggressive and was apparently crushed when Gauguin said he was leaving for good. Kaufmann told the Guardian: "Near the brothel, about 300 metres from the Yellow House, there was a final encounter between them: Vincent might have attacked him, Gauguin wanted to defend himself and to get rid of this 'madman'. He drew his weapon, made some movement in the direction of Vincent and by that cut off his left ear." Kaufmann said it was not clear if it was an accident or an aimed hit.

While curators at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam stand by the theory of self-mutilation, Kaufmann argues that Van Gogh dropped hints in letters to his brother, Theo, once commenting : "Luckily Gauguin ... is not yet armed with machine guns and other dangerous war weapons." -guardian.co.uk

BEP Rocks Chicago!

One great number pulled off by the Black Eyed Peas for Oprah's 24th Season launch in Chicago! The one thing that's amazing was the flash mob dance! Soo Cool!

Madonna For Louis Vuitton pt 1 & 2

"This was really different," explains Antoine Arnault, communications director of Louis Vuitton, when asked how Madonna came to front the company's new spring/summer campaign. "Usually, these things take much, much longer," he explains; a lengthy process of identifying the right person to embody the fashion and luxury-goods brand, the right photographer, the right look for the campaign, plus, of course, all the deal-making a project like this involves. This time, however, pretty much everything was agreed inside a week.

"On the Monday," Arnault recalls, "we had a meeting, and Marc Jacobs suggested Madonna. I thought, yes, great idea, but it will never happen. Then, in the meeting, Marc sent her a text saying, ‘Love, would you like to be the new Louis Vuitton woman?' Five minutes later, she'd replied. He showed me his phone, and she'd said, ‘Yes, I'd love to do it.'" What could be simpler ?

Clearly, when a big brand like Louis Vuitton chooses a new face for its campaign, it's not just a matter of affectionate text messages between Marc Jacobs and Madonna. Men like Louis Vuitton's CEO, Yves Carcelle, have to agree that it is a good idea, not a whim, as well as, of course, Carcelle's boss and Antoine Arnault's father, Bernard Arnault, head of the LVMH luxury-goods empire.

But as Antoine Arnault sees it, "Marc knows the brand probably better than anyone now," having been artistic director for a decade, during which time Louis Vuitton has expanded massively. Jacobs had seen Madonna in concert the week before, but it wasn't some "let's be crazy" decision, Arnault explains, citing how Jacobs had previously picked J-Lo as the face of Louis Vuitton in 2003. "That wasn't an obvious choice, perhaps, but it instantly put us on the top in the US in one campaign.
"Madonna is glamorous," Arnault continues. "She has a global image. She's the ultimate performer and businesswoman, and not someone who is just a famous singer. She has travelled; she has tried to change things." And if her personal life isn't perfect right now, "Well, that only makes her more human." Once the proposal had been made, and provisionally accepted, in both cases by text, "Then we had to agree on a figure, a concept, a photographer." Yet the whole process seems to have been plain sailing – an object lesson, if you like, in the degree of certainty that people at the top of the fashion industry tend to display about their creative choices.

The figure? Well, just how much Madonna is being paid for what is, in a sense, both one day's work and the product of many years at the top of her game is a moot point. Some have claimed it's $10 million (£6.6 million). But Arnault is careful to puncture that, saying, "The figure is really, really lower than that. In times like these, it would be totally irresponsible to pay anyone $10 million."


The concept? Madonna has been photographed in a nostalgic, Parisian bistro setting, perhaps at that "waiters whistling as the last bar closes" moment in the early hours. "Only it's in LA," Arnault quips, not Paris - "One of those French bistros in California where you really think you're in France" - and it's daytime and there are hundreds of paparazzi outside. Madonna smoulders quietly, all fishnets and high kicks, with a glamour that gives more than a nod to Dietrich, long an acknowledged influence. She's wearing Marc Jacobs' ready-to-wear clothes for Louis Vuitton, styled by Marie-Amélie Sauvé, with, of course, due prominence given to some lovely bags and shoes, those accessories that have long been such steady earners for the brand.

But there is a certain quietness to the images, a kind of gentleness, perhaps, which might also (along with that willingly professed prudence over Madonna's fee) be a sign of the extraordinary times we live in. Certainly, when I put it to Arnault that the crunch might be changing the aesthetic and that, in particular, a certain kind of flash advertising message now looks passé, even wrong somehow, he doesn't exactly demur. "Other people can try to rationalise every campaign, but there is certainly a feeling that emerges from designers, photographers, creatives of all kinds, which is maybe something they don't talk about, but which they can feel."

The photographer in question here is Steven Meisel, rather than Mert and Marcus, who have shot all of Louis Vuitton's campaigns since 2002, including those amazingly effective shots of J-Lo. "We were very happy with them," Arnault insists, but all good things come to an end – and, after all, it was Meisel who photographed the wilder, younger, more in-your-face Madonna who leapt off the pages of Sex, the book which caused such a storm back in 1992. So this campaign can be seen as something of a reunion, Meisel additionally having photographed Madonna for Vanity Fair late last year. Jacobs and Meisel are old friends, too, Arnault explains, "from the crazy years of the Eighties".

And once Antoine Arnault had assembled his dream team? "I think the three of them were in touch with each other on the phone almost every day," he says of the run-up to the shoot, “talking about ideas, sharing references, then talking about individual shots." On the big day itself, "About 50 people were on the set, which sounds like a lot, but it's all in the preparation, in the make-up and the set and so on. Once that was in place, Madonna would come out, get into position, and the shots went amazingly quickly, sometimes in about 15 minutes. It was a delight."



Marc Jacobs was so pleased with this spring’s Louis Vuitton campaign featuring Madonna that he was eager to do an encore. 'But very quickly Marc said, ‘I want something completely different,’' related Antoine Arnault, Vuitton’s communication director. The new ingredients included a dash of Tamara de Lempicka and a soupçon of Man Ray for color-drenched images by Steven Meisel with a surreal edge, thanks to generous use of solarization, a technique of overexposure first perfected by Ray.-Artlive

Comme des Garçons for Converse!

This winter, Comme des Garçons revists the Converse Chuck Taylor All Star, the 50's star shoes. Rei Kawakubo, the creative director of the brand is behind this design. It's a MUST-HAVE!!

Walk In Rhythm

Cool Initiative from Volkswagen! I love it :)

My Gym Instructors

Meet Choi and Noel, my gym instructors! Both from Manila, Choi (L) is a building champ and Noel (R) is a celebrity trainer and trains stars like Diether Ocampo & Jericho Rosales over at Gold's Gym in Manila. Cool dudes!

Barrack Obama Wins 2009 Nobel Peace Prize

"for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples"


(Let's just hope Kanye West won't disrupt the precedings :)

HALO 3

I am not that much of a game freak, I love watching the ads rather than playing the game. Then I stumbled into this one from Halo 3, And it is so intriguing that it urges me to play! Unlike the traditional 3Dish animated stuffed commercials, this one's waay unconventional, A live action trailer? I thought it was for a movie!:) The new trend in gaming ads is upon us all. Brilliant ad!



THE CREDS:
Client: Xbox
Game Title: Halo 3 ODST
Spots Title: "The Life"
Air Date: September 2009

Agency: T.A.G.
Executive Creative Director(s): Scott Duchon, John Patroulis
Art Director: Aramis Israel
Copywriter: Rick Herrera
Agency Executive Producer: Hannah Murray
Agency Producer: Joyce Chen

Ondoy/Ketsana Appeal

By BBDO Guerrero for Philippine Red Cross.

Spray Off In Paris

What happens when a Train Company collaborates with graffiti artists? A Effing Jazzed up Train ride! Yup, A French train company, Thalys, invited 6 of Europe's best writers/ graffiti artists to paint their train within 3:15 hours time before it takes off from Paris to Cologne and Amsterdam. The CEO of Thalys, Olivier Poitrenaud, said, that one reason for this event was, that Thalys doesn’t have a problem with graffiti on trains. The artists that took part in the event were Seak One, Jonone 156, Sozy One, Zeds, Nunca & Opak. Awesomeness!

The Voca People

Probably the best since Shakatak and Bob McFerrin, Pretty damn amazing! Lovin' it! :)

Pink For October

It's October and it's Breast Cancer Month. I'm turning my header into Pink in support for the Awareness of Breast Cancer. This ad was done by us at Pencil Advertising and was released in 2007, published in a local daily and posted on blogs in Kuwait, Tokyo, Brazil and as far as Israel (?) and lately was used by the British Army Federation for their article on Breast Cancer published in their Health Magazine which is distributed worldwide.