Words & Photos by: Brian Jules Campued
March is International Women’s Month! Let’s celebrate the beauty and power of women with the art review of a 2018 exhibit titled “Womb Bloom.”
When an artwork is intentionally designed to conceal some of its parts, what remains are its stark and specific details that the viewers will have to focus on. What is hidden is significant to what is shown, and that’s where Reynard Borillo’s Womb Bloom came into play.
Womb Bloom showed paintings with images of women, clad in elegant clothing, and faces covered in whimsical floral designs which were displayed at Provenance Gallery of Modern Art in Shangri-La at the Fort, Taguig City last year.
It is common knowledge that femininity is being connected to flowers being representations of women’s beauty and personality. Aside from that, Borillo said that he used flowers because “it draws all good things towards you.” The show was titled Womb Bloom because the artist dedicated it to his wife.
In the exhibit, Borillo, a Fine Arts Major in Painting graduate from the Ford Academy of the Arts, purposely masked the faces of the women in his paintings with flowers to make the viewers pay attention to its intricate designs to be able to really admire their features and derive its meaning out of what only remained visible to the eyes.
“It should always be about the details and the execution. I need to cover the faces so that it will not look specific or it will not be focused on just the beautiful face of the model,” he said.
The woman in kimono dress and hair tied properly with hands on her chin and the other one with a messy bun, wrinkled hand, and a seemingly aged face clearly depicted different interpretations even without revealing the expression on their faces. But, all of these paintings fell on the same line—celebrating femininity and beauty of women not solely being based on their attractive visage.
Flowers are created for beauty, so were women, but the world will not witness their appeal and fragrance if they are not cared for properly. Borillo added that women are like flowers that when taken good care of, blossom beautifully.
Stories these paintings tell have gone beyond what was veiled, relative to what remained perceptible. The artist took the viewers to a stroll around what seemed to be a garden of alluring flora and made them appreciate women’s pulchritude with every bit of their soul.
Young ECHO 
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