Celebrating the month of October, Utterly Art and Y2ARTS are presenting Oktoberfest!, a joint art exhibition by two art galleries in Singapore featuring two Philippine artists Norman Dreo and Maximino Balatbat’s solo exhibitions represented by Utterly Art and “Persistent” - a group exhibition by four Chinese contemporary artists Feng Ye, Liu Gang, Liu Fei and Liao Jianhua represented by Y2ARTS at the ION Art Gallery.

Utterly Art presents:

“Cache” by Norman Dreo. Besides being a secret storage area, a cache is also a location for information storage within a computer. With its similar sounding to “cash”, Norman highlights the information and knowledge currency that Information Technology brings us, and the inseparable link IT now has to our economy and to our lives.

Norman Dreo (born 1970) topped the talent test upon entering the College of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines in the mid-80s. His art has been exhibited extensively in the Philippines, Singapore, Vermont, USA and in Europe. He has won several prizes at the Metrobank National Art Competition, Art Association of the Philippines and Ateneo Art Awards. In 2000, he was awarded Juror’s Choice at the Philip Morris ASEAN Art Awards in Singapore and the Philippines. This is his ninth solo exhibition and third in Singapore.

“Palasyo ni Amalia” (Amalia’s Palace) by Max Balatbat is his architectural abstraction of Internasyonal Kabaret, an urban ghetto with a pervasive sense of squalor and ladies of the evening. This is his first overseas solo show.

Maximino Balatbat II also known as Maxbal was born in 1978 in Caloocan City. In 2002, he completed his degree in Fine Arts with a major in Advertising at the University of the East Caloocan. Maxbal gave pride to the country in 2009 when he won the Il Lorenzo Magnifico Award - Silver Medal in the Florence Biennale in Italy. In 2010, his work was among the Jurors' Choice Award of Merit in Philip Morris Philippine Art Awards, the same winning piece is now part of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ collection.

Y2ARTS presents:

“Persistent” is a group show exhibiting four China contemporary artists, the works of these artists are each unique in style, be it the painting technique or artistic expression. These works speak of different topics of which the artists are most concerned with, and the works reflect the different aspects of the artists’ thoughts which had drawn on their life experience and inner feelings. Their persistent, unique style and individual artistic expression seen in these works have also set them apart from their counterparts in other parts of Asia.