Uncommon Ordinary Magic is a rare breed–a combination art exhibit and book launch of two young Dumaguete artists at the start of their creative careers. The show is the first solo art exhibition of Hersley Ven Casero, in conjunction with the book launches of local fictionist Ian Rosales Casocot’s Heartbreak & Magic: Stories of Fantasy and Horror and Beautiful Accidents: Stories.
Casero, who is increasingly becoming known internationally for his expressive photography, explores in Uncommon Ordinary Magic his mastery in painting–his first love. In three sets of works–The Crowd, The 365 Project, and Heartbreak & Magic (the latter composed of his illustrations for Casocot’s similarly-titled book)–Casero depicts a heightened awareness of people and individuality in crowds, of celebrating the ordinary man in a time of pervasive social media, of perfect ordinariness of things elevated to a kind of magic.
Casocot, on the other hand, launches two collections of his fiction. Heartbreak & Magic, published by Anvil in 2011, collects his speculative fiction–science fiction, fantasy, and horror–some of which have won the top prize in the Philippine Graphic/Fiction Awards given out by FullyBooked and the author Neil Gaiman. His Beautiful Accidents, published by the University of the Philippines Press, also in 2011, collects his domestic realism, and aims to chart his growth as a writer. It contains stories that have won the Palanca Award and the NVM Gonzales Award. (PR)
