The Lion City is one of the most vibrant destinations in Asia is ready to fascinate travelers with its unique culture representing the both sides of the world, the east and the west.

Singapore is a treat for culture junkies. If you are a person who loves to explore history, art and culture, the "City of Lions" has a lot to offer you. Singapore has its richness when it comes to history and has been able to preserve it in the form of art and artifacts. 

The top bloggers of Singapore once again met for the Singapore Blog Awards 2012 last July 21, 2012 at Singapore Food Trail at Singapore Flyer. The SBA celebrated its 5th year in a very different way. Guests attended the awarding ceremony in their superhero costumes in line with this year's "Super Bloggers, Attack!" theme.

LAHID, as in the smearing of paint that upshots sullies on canvas, be it intentional or not, suggests more to its literality as stroked by artist Dante Palmes. Exhibited at DOS LAHID are his recentpaddlings in the dualism and dichotomy of the figurative and the abstract, areas that he long delved in since obtaining a Fine Arts degree from the Philippine Women’s University (PWU) in 1992.

His latest figurative works flaunt his yet another hurdle in style amid the places he has been to: his natural discernment or paglahid of the specificity of the changing society. Those familiar to his art will find no surprise to his paintings of vibrantly colored mud-brick dwellings in an agrarian village in the Middle East, of veiled women, and of strolling monks in Thailand. Also were his stints on farm-life subjects that are firmly predictive of his latest linkage to the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). 

However, lahid would be his continuous fondness to strokes or pahid by palette knife. The present textures, ostensibly as analytical as from a post-expressionist work, confirm his progressing faculty of the style. His choice of colors is as special as how he prevail it: “I like my works to be colorful.”

For his nonrepresentational works, described are their metaphysical dualisms from the former. Being which heterogeneously different is his method of extricating the depth of textures from the depth of colors. The results are two interacting layers impulsively playing with one’s sight. Albeit his teasing of warm colors, it is almost always his complementary action to mix up hues that will ratify his colorful benchmark.

 His composition shifts from deliberative to accidental, then shifts from being accidental to deliberative—as if applying the duality property of algebra’s lattice theory: two operations or concepts are interchangeable, whereby a dual formulation is achieved.

Such template was practically accepted positively, which had him to collect various accolades from national art competitions: from Pagsanjan Bangkero Festival National Painting Competition, Fernando Amorsolo Mentor and Apprentice National Art Competition, to GSIS Art Competition. Equally interesting is his unceasing wallowing in the arts: he had gone on to participate in over 60 group exhibitions and was able to mount six solo exhibitions. DOS LAHID counts as his third solo exhibition in the country and the sixth all-in-all.

His paddles are far from resting on its laurel, and DOS LAHID may favorably reveal which dichotomy of the arts he will incite more. Such move will be pretty exciting to see. --Marvin Angelo Rafols Oloris 

The Filipino Visual Arts and Design Rights Organization (FILVADRO) and two other collective management groups are calling on legislators to amend provisions in the copyright law of the Intellectual Property Code to make the 15- year-old law relevant to the times and applicable to the sector. Launched in September 2011, FILVADRO administers the intellectual property rights of its visual artist-members.

Frederick Epistola launched an exhibit of his latest works, “Textured Existence”, back-to-back with “La Figura En Oro”, last July 13, 2012 at Sweet Bella Café, Burgos Circle, Global City.

I was invited to attend the Blog TAYO event, a get together of bloggers and other media partners for the National Youth Commission’s upcoming search for the Ten Accomplished Youth Organization (TAYO) 2012 last July 6, 2012 at Café Dominic, Biak na Bato, Quezon City. TAYO is an yearly search to acknowledges the outstanding contributions of youth and youth serving organizations all over the country. TAYO Awards Foundation, Inc. begins in the year 2002 and has established itself as the award giving body that honors organizations with the contribution of youth to their communities. To date, more than a thousand organizations that have played a part in the development of their local communities, schools and work place have joined this prestigious contest.