If walls could talk

If we were to examine Loven Ramos’ DNA, we might find interconnecting shapes resembling paint brushes, rhyming chromosomes, and hotel tokens much like those in the game of Monopoly. Art, poetry and hotels, in fact, are the three cornerstones of his life. But who is Loven Ramos? This affable, inspiring man is a visual poet from the Philippines and his intriguing exhibition, Room Service, opens on September 11. It focuses on the intertwining fates of a hotel’s day-to-day business, as well as intimate portraits of people and events.

“The key to my exhibition is the material,” says the artist. “I have contacted many hotels and collected old linens, menus, doors… When those items arrived, I touched them and started communicating with them. ‘What happened under these sheets? Who flipped through the pages of this menu?’, I wondered. Then stories started to unfold.”

This love for art and poetry started at a tender age, thanks to a children’s magazine which published a poem by William Butler Yeats. “I was seven or eight when I got tricked into The Song Of Wandering Aengus. Not only the words were very deep, but it was also illustrated so beautifully that it really gave me a sense of wonder.” His passion for literature further developed through his grandmother, who owned a library in their village. When Loven moved to Manila, he found himself among artists, whom he endeavoured to learn from. “You drew before you walked,” Loven’s mother used to tell him. Says Loven: “Translating poetry into visual art, and vice versa, is a way to fully express myself. Every time I work on something, words and images play simultaneously in my head.”

But for now, let’s return to hotels, around which Loven has always orbited. It was in a hotel that he had his first exhibition and also in a hotel that he found, by chance, an old girlfriend from college (now his wife). Today, he owns his own: the 1961 hotel/art gallery in Siem Reap. “It’s funny how, for a couple of decades, the history of Cambodia has been shaped by hotels,” he says. “Sofitel, Raffles and Amansara, for example, have hosted politicians, presidents, royalties and heads of state, from Jacqueline Kennedy to US President Barack Obama, and many important agreements were taken at that time. I was there; I have seen this happening, while wondering what was going on in this or that room.”

In his multimedia exhibition, Loven showcases collages, soft sculptures, paintings and installations. As a hotel-inspired ‘creative archaeologist’, he digs out, suggests, reveals.

WHO: Loven Ramos
WHAT: Room Service exhibition opening
WHERE: The Insider Gallery, InterContinental Hotel, #296 Mao Tse Tung Blvd.
WHEN: 6pm September 11 – October 11
WHY: “The hotel and the characters under its roof serve as a microcosm for what was happening in the country during that time.” – Emilio Estevez