"OXO-moron" by Jose Guillermo Naval (August 8-22, 2009)

A visual exploration using the game elements of Tic-Tac Toe. The intention is to downgrade these symbols and lines to the level of unmediated impulses of varied interest. OXO-moron opens on August 8, 2009 at Whitewall Gallery is located at 7467 Bagtikan Street, San Antonio Village, Makati City.

Jose Guillermo "Poch" Naval has been exhibiting solo and in group since 2003. A self-taught artist concentrated mainly in painting. Like most self-taught artists, Poch prefers to work on his own and quietly.

For this exhibit, he will do a visual exploration using the game elements of OXO or tic-tac toe. Almost everybody knows this game because it is simple and easy to learn. For those who do not know it can be described as a simple contest of strategy involving filling up spaces on a 3 x 3 square grid with either X or O and the first to occupy 3 square in either vertical, horizontal or diagonal fashion wins.

To OXO he appends the word "MORON", a usually derogatory word for an adult with the mental age of an eight to ten year old. But his inclusion of this word is to denote a process of phenomenological reduction in which the rules of the game are suspended and its physical appearance liberated. The intention is to downgrade these symbols and lines to the level of unmeditated impulses of varied interest.

What seems to result is a variety of visual possibilities, inspired by the collision on the canvas of the manifestations of the varied interests, which may be resolved or made to remain unresolved. Altogether the act of painting in this way could be seen as a creative metaphor for more complex forms of interaction in the world and in history.

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OXO-moron exhibit runs until August 22, 2009. Whitewall Gallery is located at 7467 Bagtikan Street, San Antonio Village, Makati City.