Loading your audio article
Joanna Garel may have been born an artist — but she didn’t make it her career until about 10 years ago.
Now, the 56-year-old is celebrating her one-year anniversary as a contemporary fine art gallery owner and artist with an exhibit that honors her Filipino heritage.
“Not Your Regular Chicken Adobo – A Modern Exploration of Filipino Identity” is a celebration of Filipino American artists. The exhibit — at Garel Fine Art, 1069 N. Aviation Blvd., in Manhattan Beach — runs through May 17 and features work by Los Angeles-area artists, including Edmund Arevalo, Leo P. Carney, Aaron Dadacay, Joanna Garel, Sebastian Genato, Amelie Laurice, Vanessa Lipshutz, Tala Mateo, Maryrose C. Mendoza and Millie Velasco.
Featuring paintings, mixed media art and sculptures, the show is designed to highlight not only the artists themselves, but also their stories.
“Art is a universal language, and I’ve always felt that my purpose was to bring people together through its power,” said Garel, who has lived in the South Bay for 28 years. “I am honored and thrilled to bring Filipino artists to the forefront in this anniversary show. It’s a celebration of my heritage, our community, and the beautiful diversity that makes us all unique.”
Despite being the third-largest Asian group in the United States, Filipino Americans have often been marginalized in mainstream art, said Mendoza, who has several pieces of art in the show.
“Even though there are a lot of Filipino American artists, they’re still not necessarily visible in art spaces,” the East Los Angeles resident added. “I think it’s important to be visible and represented.”
Walking into Garel’s 750-square-foot Aviation Boulevard gallery, the first thing you’ll notice is Mendoza’s colorful fabric-stuffed globe sitting on the floor of the stark white room. Look closely and you’ll see it is made of stitched-together Hawaiian shirts — a choice that underscores how, for many Americans, Hawaiian culture has come to represent, or even obscure, Filipino identity.
“As a child growing up in America, there weren’t many touchstones for me, of my identity,” said Mendoza, who moved to California from the Philippines when she was 3. “The island identity was as close as I could get to it. And I think there’s something romantic about that too, the way that Hawaiian culture has been figured in American culture.”
Garel’s own journey toward becoming an artist has been anything but linear. She moved to North America from the Philippines when she was 8, with her family settling in Toronto.
“I was supposed to be a doctor like my mother,” she said. “But what they didn’t know was they gave birth to three kids who were all artistic.”
Despite an “obsession” with pop art cultivated by her high school art teacher, Garel said, she tried to go the pre-med route for college, but things took a turn when she became a mother at 18.
She then had a successful modeling and acting career for almost a decade, during which Garel (under the name Joanna Bacalso) traveled the world and modeled for big names, including Banana Republic and myriad Canadian catalogues. She also starred in the 2002 film “Snow Dogs” with Cuba Gooding Jr., produced by Disney’s Touchstone Pictures.
Her foray into art came when she and her husband, fellow model Matthew Garel, started collecting art for their Redondo Beach home. We’re not talking casual collecting: The pair bought Picassos. Warhols. Lichtensteins.
Then, about 10 years ago, she got the itch to create art for herself.
She had dabbled in painting while volunteering to teach art at her kids’ schools. Her sons, now grown, include Jordan Andino, a celebrity chef; Bronson Garel, a computer engineering student at Cal State Long Beach; and Trenton Garel, a singer currently attenting the Berklee College of Music in Boston.
“One day, I said to my husband, ‘You know, I think I’m going to start painting,’” Garel said. “And he said, ‘Oh, here we go.’”
She did a few paintings of the Manhattan Beach lifeguard stands and took them to Riley Art Gallery in Manhattan Beach, “just to see if they were good.”
The pieces all sold within a week.
Soon after that, she was commissioned to paint large-scale murals for the cities of Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach.
Her identity is still rooted in the Philippines, specifically when it comes to her connection to the beach and the ocean — prominent subjects in much of her art. Many of her paintings show towering palm trees, sandy beaches, wave breaks.
Of course, they could be as much Manhattan Beach coast as the sandy shores of her childhood.
“I remember being 4 or 5 years old, swimming out in the ocean by myself,” Garel said. “This is what’s familiar to me, but I wanted to elevate it, to show my two homes.”
Garel said she hopes people come and see the exhibit, not just to appreciate Filipino art — but just to appreciate art in general.
All of the works in the exhibit will be for sale.
“My main goal is to give them a stage to showcase (Filipino) work, to elevate it, to show that we have a place here and we deserve a spot here,” she said. “I also want people to look at Filipino art and say, ‘This is worth collecting.’ It’s amazing art.”
For more information, go to garelfineart.com.
