GeekMatic!: Art Fair PH | Playtime Paradiso

Playtime Paradiso is Tyang Karyel’s latest project, and her first seen in the public scene outside the local galleries that featured her over the years. She has built a portfolio ranging from small installations participating in group shows to elaborate set ups like painting a house gate that depicts you being transported into another world.

Clearly, Tyang Karyel continues to envolve and bring “fun” in art influenced by her youth and other Filipino-related popular culture things from the eras of 80s & 90s that defines her artistry, which is the reason why she’s one of the 10 artists at Art Fair Philippines 2022!

Despite the challenges in life, Tyang still pushes her artistry that infectiously grow with her childish perspective of colourful world, which brings you to “Playtime Paradiso.” This pop-up world takes you back to that place from your youth as well as gives you something to be curious about.

It’s one of the exhibits that stood out in this year’s Art Fair PH, which is part of the Projects gallery that you may find at the Ayala Triangle Gardens that you’ll certainly not gonna miss due to its attractive and interactive exhibit that immerse you in nostalgia at the same time makes you forget about another stressful day in life to just have some fun and reminisce how life was simple back in the day.

There are booths with each have something to look at how Filipino popular culture defines the way of life and you can find them as listed below:

Tanod Outpost (Neighborhood Watch Outpost)
Botika (Pharmacy/Drug Store)
Chicken Shop
Motel (Need we explain?)
Lotto Store (It’s where you buy your Lotto tickets)
Health Clinic
Meat Shop
Beauty Parlor/li>
Sari-Sari Store (Filipino Convenient Store)
Hasa (Where you take your sharp objects to be sharpened.)
Ukay-Ukay (“Dig-Dig,” secondhand shop of clothes)

It’s a place where you see elaborate and well-detailed stores and locations you see that you’ll find in the world “Tyang-anized” in her aesthetics like a mini-Disneyland tailor made from her art style you in a small space is also relatable to some of the locations in Metro Manila that has similar place like this.

The props is also created in each booth that shows there are products too like the medicine tablets in the “Botika” (Pharmacy) were actually made from candies that are given away in case parents with kids wander off to her exhibit. There are also props in the Chicken Shop that Tyang hand painted it herself. She shares that it was three people who put up this exhibit together that included her.

It’s basically a small Filipino suburb that have so many things to see like the Sari-Sari Store (Neighborhood Sundry Store) that have all that stuff you see in an actual convenient store with the canned goods made from props, but the treats like candies and other Filipino products are real that you can take home. The details don’t store there with the Lotto Shop, where you can place your bets and Tyang handing out Lotto Tickets that turned out to be world puzzles that you encircle the jumbled words that you find in the ticket. While everyone is having fun Filipino-street music that you find being played in the Jeepney or in the neighborhood is blasted in the tiny speaker as each booth has colorful strobe lights that can be seen.

It’s where Tyang’s artist colleagues hangout too during the preview night as she’s dressed up to welcome you to her world that is certainly worth visiting in this ten days of art with the other nine artists in the area. You’ll be “Tyang-anized” by her youthful charm and friendly personality that she wants you to enjoy the day at the same time see for her art to certainly appreciate whenever you drop by.