As featured on ArtistSpace’s Facebook page (October 28, 2022)

By Open Gallery

𝗠𝗘𝗟𝗜𝗦𝗦𝗔 (Ruivivar) 𝗬𝗘𝗨𝗡𝗚-𝗬𝗔𝗣 is a Filipina visual artist who actively uses art not just as a medium for self-expression but as a means to use her art as a platform to share her advocacies, the appreciation of nature and culture and to gather support for the communities close to her heart.

During the pandemic, many weavers, wood carvers, artists lost their livelihood due to the closure of tourism and expositions. In order to help in a sustainable way for her, Yeung-Yap started to incorporate the crafts onto her art. This enabled her to purchase products from the indigenous communities, such as fabric and brass from the T’bolis, woven materials from Maranao, Pala’wan baskets and Inabel weaves. She also used frames from Paete, Taytay and Tarlac woodcarvers.

During her solo art exhibition under Fundacion Sanso’s Art + Design = Empowerment program, proceeds from the sale of her collaborative art was able to fund the new weaving center of Lang Dulay’s descendants.

By incorporating indigenous/traditional crafts onto her art, while remaining true to her modern art style, she is able to bridge tradition with innovation for the modern art lovers and younger audiences to appreciate.

She has exhibited since 2012 in various countries/cities like the Philippines, Sydney, London, Wales, Singapore, Fukuoka, and Vienna.

She has received numerous accolades, such as the CNN Leading Women (2020), Ramon V. del Rosario Siklab Award (2019), and The Outstanding Young Person Award (2013) which allowed her to be presented to the Imperial Highnesses Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masaka of Japan in 2013, for her many advocacies which involve the empowerment of marginalized communities that are poverty stricken, war-torn, in disaster prone areas and in the crossfire of conflicts due to indigenous land rights.

Editor’s Note: Melissa’s late grandfather Jose Ruivivar is from Legazpi City.

Melissa’s 10-10-10 Solo Exhibition

By Ricky Francisco

The 10th solo exhibition of 𝗠𝗘𝗟𝗜𝗦𝗦𝗔 𝗬𝗘𝗨𝗡𝗚-𝗬𝗔𝗣 coincides with her 10th Anniversary as an exhibiting artist. The idea that she roughly averages one solo exhibition per year throughout the past decade belies the fact that she balances her art making with being a wife and a mother, a CEO of an established Filipino brand, the founder and Executive Director of her own foundation and her own social enterprises which involve and give livelihood to various communities. This year alone, she has had a solo exhibition at the prestigious ArtFair Philippines to start the year, and has produced art works for several group exhibitions she has been part of, so far.

Being prolific, while maintaining both the quality of her works, and her energy, is possible without her burning out because making art has always been her dream. From her early art lessons in grade school with one of her favorite teachers Ms. Sazon (now Mrs. Rito), through her lessons with George Tagle, who made her a scholar for the potential she had, and with Arthur dela Cruz who taught her to work with acrylic, (her favored medium), making art energizes her.

Throughout the years living in the UK and traveling across various countries, and through the transition of having her child and changing her role to focus on establishing her family, art has provided her not only with the means to express her thoughts and feelings, to find solace and happiness in her inner world’s outward expression, but also with the means to connect with other people, and uplift them in various ways, as this exhibition demonstrates.

This method of connecting has always been a hallmark of her art making. As an art scholar of Tagle in her teens, Melissa Yeung Yap paid it forward by giving free art workshops kids at the Concordia Children’s Services where she was able to teach 90 students in successive batches. As an adult, through her foundation, she was able to use art as therapy for children who suffered through the siege of Marawi. Recently, during the pandemic and its two-year lockdown, she was able to sustain a community of T’boli t’nalak weavers under the Betek Ifuy Weaving Organization, and refurbish their weaving center on top of the livelihood she generated by buying their works and incorporating it into her paintings.

This exhibition comes as a thanksgiving for Melissa Yeung-Yap, as well as a giving back, for through it, she has involved herself in the cycle of sustainability of more than 10 artisan communities across our country.

Melissa’s 10-10-10 Solo Exhibition is shown at ArtistSpace in Makati, presented by 𝗔𝗿𝘁 𝗟𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗹𝗮 and 𝗚𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗡𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗢𝗻𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲. Curated by 𝗥𝗶𝗰𝗸𝘆 𝗙𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗼.

VIEW SOLO EXHIBITION AT ARTIST SPACE.

Selected paintings from her 2022 collections featuring T’nalak and acrylic:

1) Abyssal Glow; 2) Abyssal Glory; 3) Luntian (pink); 4) Luntian (green); 5) Sunrise Blooms, with hand-carved frame from Paete; 6) Sunrise Blooms, with embroidered piña silk and Yakan weave; 7) Garden Glow; 8) Glow Fish.