• CHRYSEE G. SAMILLANO

A Dumaguete-based artist opened her third solo art exhibition at the Abstract Cafe and Gallery at Northpoint Atrium, B.S. Aquino Drive, Bacolod City on Sunday, which will run until August 30.
Titled “White is the Dimmest Color”, the show features the works of Rev. Tet Gallardo in oil and acrylic on canvas, and mixed media, “which challenges the lingering colonial mentality wherein whiteness is seen as superior.”
She chose the title because “I felt that white has been given a privileged place in our lens as Filipinos when it comes to skin color, when it comes to prestige,” she said, adding that “I want us Filipinos to see beyond what we’ve been told about white.”
This intriguing title for one of Gallardo’s exhibitions flips the script on color perception. It proposes that white by obscuring and diminishing anything that doesn’t fit in its narrow definition of beauty, is actually the “dimmest” color. This challenges our traditional understanding of color theory.


Meanwhile, Gallardo said she only started to come out as an artist this year but has started selling paintings during the pandemic for survival.
She started to paint when she was 16 years old but was discouraged by her father who said there was no future in it. So she stopped and only started to paint again when she went to Dumaguete in 2018 for a vacation.
“In order to heal myself, I had to be myself, which is an artist. So I recovered my own wounds by trying to express what I was feeling…. so this is more of an expression because I want to express who I am,” Gallardo added.
Guests of honor at the opening where Patty Jane Ong and Revo Yanson, Art Association of Bacolod-Negros (AABN) treasurer and director, respectively.*

