Saturday, February 20, 2016

12:18 PM | Julia Christine Vista Zamar's Sparrow and Other Birds

You are invited to a solo exhibition by visual artist Julia Christine Vista Zamar titled His Eyes Are on the Sparrow, which opens on 22 FEBRUARY 2016, Monday at 5:30 PM at the Claire Isabel McGill Luce Auditorium Foyer Gallery.

His Eyes Are on the Sparrow is Ms. Zamar's first solo exhibit in Dumaguete, and her second after an exhibit together with her mother Elizabeth Susan Vista-Suarez in 2013.

Birds have always intrigued the artist. For Ms. Zamar, they are intelligent creatures that "soar through the sky," and symbolize beauty, bravery, determination, grace, and hope. While the exhibit tackles water-color depictions of various other birds, the central theme is the figure of the sparrow. "In the olden times," according to Ms. Zamar, "sparrows were sold for a very low price (Matt. 10:29). Those who were poor and could not afford to sacrifice a sheep or a goat might bring a sparrow to the temple (Lev. 14:1-7). In the market, if one bought four sparrows, the seller would throw in one more for free (Luke 12:4-7). It was this extra sparrow of which Jesus said, 'And not one of them is forgotten before God.' God cares for us so much that even the 'insignificant' sparrow is being observed by Him."

Julia Christine Vista Zamar is a registered medical technologist, but belongs to a family of artists. She lives in Dumaguete City.
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The exhibit is open to the public for free, and runs until MARCH 12.



And to complement Justine's exhibit this Monday, here's a beautiful poem by Silliman writer Anthony L. Tan titled "The Sparrows Come Free":

The future was already in the past.
The leaves were there in the seeds --
Brittle brown, black serration,
Wrinkled, desiccated,
Waiting for the clemencies of time,
And green thumbs, weather, earth, water.
In the mind's eye were visions of things,
The possibilities of lushness,
Of tangerine ripeness and yellow pungency,
The anticipation of the sigh of summer
Among the wayward branches,
Of leaves snuggling in pouring rain,
The nocturne of frogs rising from the ponds.
When you dug a hole in the ground
To bury the unpromising saplings,
When in the months that followed
You uprooted the irrelevant weeds,
Prayed for rain and sunlight to some god
Of dubious munificence,
Was it ever on the periphery of the heart's dream
That some years into your middle age
The seeds would have such a crown of abundance
For the birds to have made their airy sanctuary?
Now the garden is ablaze with their raucous summons.
And sometimes interfused with their ceaseless aubade,
As the saffron dawn recedes relentlessly
Toward common brightness,
The blue echoes of a god-like voice:
The sparrows come free, 
Come free, 
Come free.

Labels: art and culture, artists, cultural affairs committee, dumaguete, painting, poetry, silliman

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