Sining at Kasining Essays

 

Part 1. Sining

1. AN ILLUSTRATOR'S MANIFESTO                                

(This manifesto was used as wall text for my 2007 solo exhibit of illustrations and paintings at the Crucible Gallery. The remark I made here about a few Picasso imitators as second-rate artists have raised the hackles of some who felt alluded to. Well, allow me to clear things up. I'm not referring to all Picasso imitators, nor to all modernist painters for that matter. The fellows I have in mind were those who haven't gone through the whole route of first learning the rudiments of realist drawing and painting before adopting abstraction or modernist figuration as their style.

I wrote this manifesto in a state of pique, when I was reminded again of the snub I was  subjected to by a female painter years before she died. I met her when I was working as a gallery assistant at the Galleria delas Islas in 1986. She came to the gallery one day with photographs of her paintings which she wanted to show to the gallery owners.

She was a vibrant raconteur who had many stories to tell. Our conversation amused me a lot, that's why I promised her that I'll do all I can to get the gallery owners to approve her exhibit proposal. Mr Robert Lane, co-owner of the gallery, told me that he was amazed by the lady's passion for painting. She was very prolific---she presented pictures of dozens of her paintings. But still, Mr. Lane turned her exhibit proposal down. Her works, which were all Picasso painting look-alikes, were, seemingly, not up to his standards.

The painter was disheartened of course. But only for a while. She just shopped around for another gallery to exhibit in and found it. That gallery was the City Gallery at the Luneta, just walking distance from Intramuros where the Galeria delas Islas is located.

I remember that Lalyn Buncab, the manager of Galeria delas Islas, received an invitation to attend the show opening, but she didn't want to attend. That's why it was only me and painter friend Edgar Saballo who went to the cocktail reception. It was apparently a success judging from the big number of guests present. I don't know how many paintings she eventually sold, but I'm sure that she at least sold one because I saw a red dot on the tag of one painting.

I approached her to greet and congratulate her, but to my dismay, she acted as if she didn't see me, and just move on to wherever she intended to go. Dinedma lang ako, hahaha.... Anyway, after partaking of the refreshments laid out on the table, I and Edgar hurriedly left the gallery.)

AN ILLUSTRATOR'S MANIFESTO

I once consulted a fellow painter for advice. I asked him if it is all right for me to mount as my first solo show an exhibition of picture book illustrations. He said no, and I asked him why. "Strategy," he replied: by which he meant, I surmised, that a painter must avoid being labeled an illustrator at the start of his career. Get known as a painter first, then dabble in illustration later.

Implicit in my friend's response is the veiled disdain felt by some painters for illustrators. The matter is made worse by my firsthand observation that some gallery owners themselves are also infected with that conceit. Prior to being okayed by the Crucible Gallery, my exhibit proposal for my first solo show of fairy tale illustrations was rejected by four galleries. One gallery owner even dismissed my work with a smirk, which made me feel pathetic indeed. She at least could have softened the blow by explaining that my work will look incongruous in a gallery with a penchant for showing angst-ridden paintings.

But no matter, I know that in time, I can somehow prove my point that there are only second-rate artists, not second-rate art forms.

Before focusing my energies on illustration, I did paintings with proletarian themes Those are grim works, which may perhaps partly explain why they never were commercially successful. Today, in my work as illustrator, what is grim is no longer my artworks' subject matter, but my determination to push my standard to my highest limit. In my more than ten years in picture book illustration, I have never once considered it a breeze  compared to painting. The opposite is true, because the parameters in picture book illustration are many and exacting. There is a manuscript to dissect, an editor to please, and the child readers to entertain. Whereas in painting, you can just affect the nonchalant pose of a recluse and please only yourself.

In our art scene, there appeared from time to time a few Picasso imitators who flaunted nothing but canvases filled with Picassoesque doodles and distortions. But something was glossed over in their posturing. They conveniently forgot that Picasso had mastered the technique of Classical Realism by his fifteenth year. These ersatz Picassos have leapfrogged. Although not yet adept in the two-dimensional construction of the human form, they proceeded forthwith to deconstruct it. And presto, they then wore with pride the label 'modernist'.

Lest I be accused of inviting controversy, I do not of course insinuate that all modernists are poseurs. Far from it. I sincerely admire the works of Arturo Luz, Malang, Prudencio Lamarrosa, Marcel Antonio, and many other modernists. And I intend to one day align myself with them and be a modernist painter too. But no leapfrogging for me. I reserve my disdain only for those who mask their ineptness in the realist technique with the camouflage of modernism. They are the second-rate artist I am alluding to.

I repeat, there is no second-rate art form. Each art form, be it painting, book illustration, animation, digital graphics, etc., is as good as any. What counts is the practitioner's level of competence. And competence I think is what I've shown in my suite of Hans Christian Andersen and Brothers Grimm fairy tale illustrations---discipline also, and patience. And courage too---the courage to stare back at the poverty that stared me in the face. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. For among the publishers that I have worked for, my present publisher Reni Roxas of Tahanan Books is the most generous. She never hesitated to offer me fees way beyond the going rate of other publishers.

But with the actual art making process stretched into more than a year, the whole enterprise seemed to cease being lucrative. But believe me, money is never a factor in my success equation. What I've set out to do when I embarked on this project was to create works that will compare not too unfavorably with the world's best. I may have fallen short of my goal, but who cares. I have done what I can and completed my best work yet. I have wielded with much agony the tool that I'm most familiar with---my adeptness in a certain realist technique that another fellow painter said borders on the obsessive. And that proves another point: that we illustrators are also capable of suffering in the pursuit of excellence in our art. And that we too have our own angst, like any starving painter.

2. PAINTINGS FOR FREE

I consider the painting behind me in the photo  as my best surrealist work. It remains unsold though to this day. The title of this painting when I exhibited it at the Crucible Gallery in 2007 was "Happy Man". Ii was shown again under another title, "Corrupt Bureacrat Dissected", at the Altromondo Gallery in 2010 during a group art exhibit of winners in the Metrobank annual painting competitions.

Two collectors have offered to buy this painting, but both deals fell through. One collector who expressed interest in buying this was one of the VIP guests in the  Metrobank exhibit at Altromondo. She said that she's going to have this painting reserved for herself because she wants to give this as gift to the then newly-elected President Noynoy Aquino, to warn him of this type of politicians who'll definitely hover around him in the coming days. I was elated of course, expectant of the windfall that will come my way in two weeks or so 

But I had no such luck. The painting wasn't bought. The woman didn't even have this reserved---that is, have it tagged with a green dot. Today, I suspect that maybe that woman was not really interested in buying this painting. I could be wrong, but maybe, she just wanted me to get the hint, and volunteer to donate the painting myself to the President. Which I'll never do for two reasons. First, PNoy is a rich man and he can surely afford to buy this painting if he wants to. And second, we're not close---he's not even an acquaintance. I know of him but he doesn't know of me. I only give paintings to friends, long-time friends mostly, who've done me favors in the past. In short, I give paintings to reciprocate.

Another woman who was connected with a certain foundation once told me that artists should be grateful if they got invited to participate in a charity art exhibit and given part of the proceeds from sales. Well, I say that artists have all the right to get paid. It would be too much to ask of them to do the donating all by themselves, and give their paintings absolutely gratis to the organizers of a charity art exhibit. Painting is the painter's means of livelihood if he is not a mere dilettante. Proceeds from sales of his paintings put food on his table and paints on his palette. Not paying him in any way, therefore, would deprive him of those.

Asking professional artists to do an artwork for free is the height of insensitivity. It is an insult even, a presumption that an artist's talent, time, and effort was of little value. Offering exposure or free publicity as payment in lieu of cash exposes those who do so for the cheapskates they really are.

Years ago, there was a call for painters to do mural work inside Intramuros, if I remember correctly. There would have been a rush by artists to answer that call had there not been a catch. The catch was the artists won't be paid for their efforts. It was purely voluntary work where the payment presumably would be exposure and free publicity. I don't know if that gratis mural project pushed through, but I've never heard of it again.

Don't get me wrong, please. Artists can be civic minded too. They won't hesitate to donate an artwork or do art for free for truly worthy causes---like for example, Buds Convocars 'Art for Humanity' fund-raising campaign for the victims of Typhoon Yolanda. A plea to donate paintings to raise funds for a cancer-stricken fine arts schoolmate was also made. Both calls were successful as artists, including myself, gave artworks with alacrity. And then, there was Dr. Joven Cuanang's 'Flores Para Los Muertos' mural project on the east wall of the North Cemetery in which hundreds of enthusiastic painter volunteers participated.

You can see from the projects I cited above that artists are not that stingy. They are in fact inherently generous. All the promoters have to do to persuade artists to perform volunteer work is to be forthright and state the commendable objective of the project without adding as supposed sweetener those crappy overused words, 'exposure and free publicity'. No need for them to take on the job of  publicizing what we artists do. We can do that without their help. If we want to flaunt our art, what we'll do is just flood facebook and other social media with our works.

3. THE POST-WARHOLITE BROTHERHOOD

An art movement flourished in England at around the same time as when the Impressionists were starving and struggling to gain acceptance in Paris. The three founding members, William Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and John Everett Millais called their group the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, to emphasize their fascination with medieval themes and painting techniques prior to the advent of Raphael. 

The Pre-Raphaelites abhorred slapdash and bravura brushstrokes, and had a great success emulating the glazing technique and obsession with details of the quattrocento painters of the Flemish School. Although the Impressionists were considered more significant for their role in liberating painting from academism and tradition, the Pre-Raphaelites also had their own set of admirers from those who put premium on old-fashioned manual dexterity rather than innovativeness. 

Pop Art made its first appearance in England in the late fifties. Richard Hamilton was its first proponent there. Although initially British, it was the Americans who managed to popularized Pop and gained for it a cult following, Andy Warhol especially. Who can forget Andy's large scale silk-screened images of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Jacqueline Kennedy, Mao Tse Tung, car crashes, Campbell Soup cans, and electric chairs. 

After the heyday of the other original American pop artists, like Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichstenstein, and Keith Haring, along came Jean Michel Basquiat with his graffiti-like paintings, and Jeff Koons with his kitschy sculptures of Michael Jackson and his monkey among others, and his porn/art collaboration with erstwhile wife, pornstar Ilona Staller (La Ciciolina). There is also Robert Williams who effected a fusion of pop and surrealism with his pop surrealist works. 

Lately, a reincarnation of sort of pop occurred in Japan with the rise to prominence of Takashi Murakami and his followers in the Superflat Movement. Their art can be the defining style of the past decade with its penchant for using anime, manga, and computer icons imagery. 

In the Philippines, there are many painters who also does pop style paintings, like Ronaldo Ventura, Farley del Rosario, Anthony Palo, Dex Fernandez, Christian Tamondong, Jojo Garcia, Janos dela Cruz, Nemo Aguila, Ricarte Ico, Mura Hari Das Evangelista, and myself.

Beginning 2008, I began to wean myself away from the sharp-focused realist technique I used in my previous artworks. I sort of grew tired of that obsessive technique, and also felt that I have already exhausted all the possibilities of realism. I began looking at art with a modernist more sophisticated eye, seeing beauty in reduction and distortion. 

The first products of my tentative foray into modernism were my appropriations of a few famous nudes by the old masters. A prime example would be the series I did on Titian's "Venus of Urbino", which I first painted as an obese Venus in the manner of Fernando Botero, but which I trimmed later into a slimmer though still voluptuous nude.

I didn't stopped there. I continue to subject my human figures to further manipulation and reduction. Now, the figures in my paintings, especially the female ones, are a bit cartoony and very slim, but are still seen as seductive, because of the overly emphasis on their hips and other feminine assets.

The unifying thread discernible in these later paintings, aside from my concern with themes of music, and courtship and seduction---a far cry from the angry and overtly political tones of the paintings of my youth---was my use of cubist and pop art devices like loud coloration, hard-edged lines, overlaps and tangents, geometric and textile patterns, and cartoony and kitschy images.

As with past and present pop artists elsewhere, our present crop of Filipino pop artists are fixated on images contemporary and popular. Jeepneys, sneakers, soda drink cans, toys, cartoons, graffiti doodles, rock stars, etc., are the staples of our art. With the proliferation of Warholite disciples like us, it would seem that Andy hadn't died and is still busy directing his several assistants to manufacture the artworks for him to endorse and sign. If there was a Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood before in England, there is now a Post-Warholite Brotherhood here. But the millennials among us might abhor the tag Post-Warholite. They'd much rather I suppose call our movement Pinoy Pop or PPop.

4. CERTIFICATES OF INAUTHENTICITY

(Above is a photo-collage of the three oil paintings I exhibited and sold to a single collector during my 2007 solo show at the Crucible Gallery. They were also the first three of my artworks for which a collector asked for certificates of authenticity.)

One day, I and my cycling buddy Isko Dela Cruz dropped by the house of a painter who was copying an Amorsolo painting. The painter's improvised studio was outside the house, on the narrow front yard separated from the sidewalk by a top to bottom grill fence.

The sidewalk was along Samson Road in Caloocan, just walking distance from Baltazar Bukid Street where Isko lives. The fence being just grill work, we could see from where we stood on the sidewalk the man at work.

The painter, whose name I forgot, told us that he's already based in Canada, an immigrant petitioned by his daughter. He's just here on vacation, he said. On his easel was an unfinished reproduction of an Amorsolo painting. According to him, he used to do several such reproductions when he was younger which he consigned with a gallery in Ermita. 

While conversing with him, a friend of his, a fellow painter, came along. This fellow revealed that he was also into painting reproductions not only of Amorsolos, but also of paintings by other famous contemporary painters as well. He added that he had a regular client, an art collector, who commissioned him for those works. 

But there's a sinister note to their transaction. This collector resells those reproductions as originals to gullible buyers, presenting as proof of their genuineness the certificates of authenticity (COA) provided by the original artists themselves. This painter-forger boasted  that he was paid 20 thousand pesos by that collector for every fake painting he delivered.

Here's how that sinister art collector operates. He will first buy an original painting from a famous best-selling painter and requests a COA, which the painter will naturally give. The collector will then ask the forger to copy exactly not only  the original painting he just bought but also  the signature of the famous artist who painted the original. The art collector will afterwards find a buyer for the fake painting which he'll claim as an original, showing as proof a certificate of authenticity which could be the genuine thing provided by the famous artist or could also be a forgery. 

That was neat. Our talk with those two painters happened many years ago, in 2014 I think. I don't know if that painter-forger is still at it, doing exact copies of paintings by famous artists and signing them with the famous artists' signature, and delivering them to that sinister art collector with a criminal mind. All I know is that art forgery, being notoriously profitable, must still be rampant nowadays, especially of works which are easy to copy but could sell for hundreds of thousands or even millions of pesos.

Wikipedia defines art forgery as the creation of works of art which are falsely attributed to other, usually more famous, artists. Copies, replicas, and reproductions are not considered forgeries if the copying artist puts his own signature on the artwork and not that of the master. 

Years ago, I came across an article by Constantino Tejero in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, titled "Devious Manansala Thwarted." Tejero discussed in that article a painting, "The Bird Seller", which was scheduled to be put on the block in a Christie's-Hong kong auction. The painting, dated 1976, was supposedly by Manansala, but alert Manansala collectors immediately notified Christie's of their suspicion that the work was most probably a forgery because there is a similar 1973 Manansala work owned by Judy Araneta Roxas titled "Birdman".  

The owner of the Bird Seller could have passed it off easily as genuine despite a subtle difference in coloration. Only the discerning eyes of the Manansala experts prevented his or her doing so. And indeed, the Bird Seller, when analyzed and compared with the original Manansala, showed hints of being painted by a lesser-skilled artist. The accusation by the Manansala collectors must be true, because the owner of the Bird Seller, when challenged by the Christie's personnel, just quietly withdrew the painting from the auction. 

Art forgery is a lucrative racket. One painter, a Dutchman, sold more than a million dollars worth of fake Vermeers before being discovered and jailed. The painter who doubled as an art dealer was Han van Meegeren. He sold several 'Vermeer' paintings to Hitler's air force chief Hermann Goering. When the allies discovered Goering's cache of  supposed Vermeers, and traced its origin to van Meegeren, he was promptly arrested and charged with collaboration with the Nazis---a crime punishable by death. To save his skin, van Meegeren chose to confess to a lesser crime, and claimed that he himself painted the fake Vermeers, a claim he proved when he painted in prison the painting "Jesus Among the Doctors".

And the racketeers are still at it, it would seem, as shown by the case of a painting being eagerly passed off as a lost Michelangelo. The painting was a Pieta, and I, although not formally schooled in art criticism, could easily see that it wasn't a Michelangelo at all. It is but a confused amalgam of the styles of Caravaggio, Giovanni Bellini, and okay, perhaps of Michelangelo himself. But Michelangelo always painted his bambinos chubby, not muscular as they are painted on this pieta. Therefore, the very muscularity of the two boys betrays the try-hard and silly attempt of whoever painted this to approximate Michelangelo's muscular images of adult male and female figures.

Filipino art forgers have already caught on with their foreign counterparts, as witness the appearance in recent years of a fake Malang, a fake Bencab, and perhaps several fake Botongs. Fake Amorsolos seem to be abundant even during the days when the master was still alive. I've read somewhere that when a buyer of a fake Amorsolo brought the painting to him for authentication, Amorsolo, out of pity for the poor buyer, applied by his own hand daubs of paint to the canvas to make it an 'original' work of his.

An assistant curator of a gallery in Manila, told me that he moonlights as a dealer of a Botong watercolor, which is priced at more than a hundred thousand pesos. I have seen an original Botong watercolor, so I told him that I could perhaps tell if the Botong he was selling was a fake. He said that he was sure that the artwork was genuine because it has a certificate of authenticity, signed by Botong's manchador (underpainter or apprentice) himself, to back it up. I cannot say this to his face then , but I'm saying now that some people can be bought. And that documents can lie because they can also be forged. Besides, the apprentice or assistant of the master painter should be the last person whose words we should trust on the question of the genuineness of the painting whose certificate of authenticity he signed. Who knows, that painting could just be the handiwork of the apprentice himself, his copy of the master's original.

Well, my point is authentication papers don't mean a thing if the artworks they certify as originals are so badly done that they are easily seen as clear bastardization of the masters' styles. What art buyers should do is to ask for certificates of authenticity upon purchase of the artwork from the artist himself if he's still alive, or from his heirs if already dead. That was what the buyer of the three oils I exhibited at the Crucible Gallery did.

Another interesting read from the Philippine Daily Inquirer was an article by former Toyota coach and painter Dante Silverio. He lamented in that article the practice of a famous Filipino painter he didn't name, who demands 10 thousand pesos for a COA a previous buyer of his painting would request. Mr. Silverio strongly objected to that. He wrote that it is the duty of the artist to provide free of charge COAs to clients who patronized his works, even more so to those who bought from him the works he did when he was not yet famous. Demanding fees for COAs is the height of ingratitude, Mr. Silverio pointed out. I agree.

Since certificates of authenticity are not foolproof and can even be used to authenticate fake paintings, perhaps what a buyer of a painting should also demand is a photograph of the painter handing over the painting to the original.collector. It would be a good idea therefore for buyers of art to have their photos taken with the artist and the artwork so that when they decide to unload the artwork later on they can provide the new buyer not only with a COA but also with a copy of the turn-over photo.

This, the latest buyer of my painting, Ms. Maricar Celestial, did when I delivered the painting she commissioned me to her condominium. She earlier requested that I provide her with a certificate of authenticity. I replied that I can't give her that for the meantime since computer shops where I'll have the certificate printed are still close due to the community quarantine. Before I left , Maricar, who commissioned me again for another painting, suggested that she be the one who'll provide printed copies of COAs which I'll just sign when I come back. I agreed of course. So, I left her condominium that July day extremely grateful and satisfied---and confident too that I'll have cash enough to sustain us through this pandemic for the next few months.

5. THE ART OF GORE

(The photo collage  shows Salvador Dali beside his 'skull tableau' of naked women and three of his paintings)

Years ago, I saw on television a Filipino painter who uses real human skulls as his painting medium. I repeat, as painting medium, not as motif or subject matter. The painter broke the skull into several pieces and used each as some kind of chalk which he rubbed on big squarish sheets of abrasive paper (papel de liha) which served as his canvases.

The abstract images he produced consisting of white striations and hatchings would have won the nod of art enthusiasts with modernist leanings or taste. But the gross nature of the medium I'm sure would repulse them instead. The fellow apparently relished demonstrating his technique as revealed by his brisk manner and his quite articulate reply to the interviewer's queries. He was obviously euphoric; he savored to the last delectable morsel his fifteen minutes of fame.

Featured in the same program was another painter who uses his own blood as painting medium instead of watercolor, acrylic, and oil. This painter treads the path similar to that walked on by other painters who, in the name of innovation and uniqueness, utilize edible ingredients like fried garlic and coffee as their painting medium.

Attempts to break out of the box and do things the novel way are commendable, indeed. But, these painters should also see to it that their finished works would be durable. The buyers of these artworks will be shortchanged if the 'pigment' used began to fade, crumble, and deteriorate after just a year or two. Watercolor and oil paints, you see, had binders mixed with their pigments (gum arabic for watercolor and linseed oil for oil paints) which hold the pigment particles in suspension and make them adhere to the paper or canvas. Without those binders, watercolors and oils done centuries, or even just decades ago, wouldn't have lasted and remained in mint condition up to this day. Now, if the blood, fried garlic, and coffee pigments don't have binders mixed with them, then, I doubt if they would last for a long time 

What could have impelled these painters to use untried pigments as their medium must have been their craving to attract the attention of journalists on the prowl for unique stories. They perhaps suspect that their talent is not remarkable enough to attract media attention. They are wrong there, because their outputs spoke volumes about the innate talent they all have, which I'm certain would thrust them later into prominence. The process of being recognized as a significant artist is a long and arduous one. There are absolutely no shortcuts. The celebrity they now basked in is certainly short-lived. They run the risk too, if they persist in their ways, of being considered more as curiosities---oddities---rather than as significant artists by those involved in the art scene here.

Although graphic renderings of the human skull is not the thing of the guy who used cracked skulls as drawing tool,  I guess i can include him among the disciples of the Skull School. I can feel that he share the same impulse in his art making, which is necrophilia and love of gore. The skull-schoolers espouse an upside-down aesthetics. They see beauty in rot. They confused their preoccupation with arcana and esoterica as profundity. But as I have said before, I suspect that what may have impelled these people to go the gross route is their obsessive craving for publicity. They must have realized early on that the flouting of rules and conventions is almost always newsworthy. 

And they are right, too. Salvador Dali may have employed similar tactics to generate publicity for his art but his methods now look amusing and even wholesome. He may have disrupted societal conventions and overstepped the limits of good taste, but everything he did was done tongue-in-cheek. Dali was just hamming. His feigning lunacy was just a marketing ploy. And let's not forget that for all his clowning, Dali, was in fact the great artist that he loudly touted himself to be. In my opinion, only Picasso outranked him as the greatest painter of the twentieth century.

I don't know if that Filipino artists still use human skull as his painting medium. I suppose and hope that he had stopped doing so and realized that 'true fame' only comes to those who pursue and excelled in their artistic endeavours by going the tasteful route. Fame achieved by being famously disagreeable is notoriety. It is not the kind of publicity we artists should crave for.

6. BLACK

(Above are a few of my artworks on which I made ample use of black paint.)

The story Mon Villanueva told us might be apocryphal. The source of his story was a former student of the University of the East School of Music and Fine Arts (UESMFA). This student related that on the first day of their painting class, their instructor inspected their oil paint sets, took the tubes of black paint out of the boxes, and threw them out the window. 

The reason, the instructor declared, was because in his class, the use of black in their paintings is forbidden. That was a ridiculous and tyrannical gesture---an overacted dramatics by that instructor who could have just ordered his students to leave their tubes of black paint at home.

Some art teachers from way way back have forbidden the use of black in painting. I've heard first hand one or two instructors telling us to use, in lieu of real black, a mixture of all  the primary colors---lots of blue and red and a little yellow. That was a dictum probably propagated by impressionist painters who preferred a palette of pastel hues above all others. They won't use black for shadows, but would instead use blue, purple, and even pink. With good results, I admit.

But not all painters are impressionists. Many painters like myself are not averse to using black in our artworks. Even in art school, I've always used black in my plates in direct disregard of the advice given us by an instructor. 

More so when I turned professional. All of my illustrations and paintings have ample traces of black in them. I mixed black with red to get a maroon, with orange to get a brown, and with blue and white to get a blue-gray color. I used black too in painting shadows, hair, eyes, and anything that looks truly black. 

It seems impractical to spend time and effort to mix three colors to get a color that is almost black when I have a tube of black paint waiting to be squeezed on the palette and brushed on the paper or canvas. Of course, if I need black and I don't have a tube of black paint on hand, that's the time I'll use my knowledge of color mixing and combine all primary colors to get my black.

One seemingly valid reason why art teachers tell students to refrain from using black in painting is because the finished work would appear to have holes in them if black was used. Not always. Of course, the spots of pure black paint will look like holes if their edges are painted sharp, and not blurred to blend with the adjacent colors. 

The trick really is to use black paint sparingly, to not mixed it with many of the colors you are using. If you have a tube of black paint, use it. Do not mixed the blues, reds, and yellows to get your black. Because a time may come when you'll need those primary colors individually but you don't have any left anymore because you have used them all, mixed up together, as black paint. You'll be forced then to rush to the art supply store to buy again the colors you have carelessly used.

7. WORKS ON PAPER

Noted painter Renato Habulan invited me to join him and other noted artists, Fred Liongoren, Benjie Torrado Cabrera, and Pinggot Zuleta, in an exhibit of paintings on paper. The show, "Papelismo",  opened at the Crucible Gallery on September 4, 2012. It was the first in a series of shows by the Papelismo group.

It was late 2011 when Ato send me a message about his plan to mount such a show, because he was of the impression then that works on paper were supposedly being ignored by artists and art collectors alike. 

Well, there may be truth to that, because Atty. Jing David, owner of Galerie Anna, had also observed the same thing. We were at the Altro Mondo, during the opening of an exhibit of our group of Metrobank painting competition winners, when he told me that galleries find it difficult to increase the price of paintings on paper. He observed that there seems to be a certain ceiling beyond which the prices of paintings on paper cannot go. 

Sari Ortiga, President of the Crucible Gallery, also expressed a similar opinion. He suggested that I do more oils on canvas, because they are easier to sell. And he was right there, because the three oils I exhibited in my second solo show at the Crucible in 2007, were bought wholesale by a single collector at a good price. I surmised that one reason why collectors seem to be reluctant to buy paintings on paper is the perceived 'perishability' of such works. Pish posh! I say to that.

The painting "A Gift of War" (top painting in the photo collage above) is one of my oldest extant works. It is a 1983 acrylic on Ingres-Fabriano paper. Compared to my old oils done during the same period, this painting aged admirably well. While my old oil paintings have lost their luster because of the accumulated dust and grime, the colors of this painting have surprisingly retained their original intensity. And the paper is still far from crumbling.

In my later works, I have used acrylic mostly on Canson Montval paper.. Sometimes, when I finished a work, the paper buckled or warped because of the many acrylic washes I applied to it. This may surprised you, but what I did to straighten the paper out was immersed it for a second or two in a tub of water, and then hanged it on a line to dry. Once dried, the paper regained its flatness with the colors remaining undisturbed and intact. 

One way of protecting paintings on paper is to always keep them framed under glass or wrapped in plastic, which I should say isn't an inconvenient or expensive thing to do, compared again to what should be done to prevent an oil painting from collecting dust and grime---which is to display them in a dust-free or air-conditioned room.

By the way, A Gift of War, which was my plate for our Composition class at the UE School of  Fine Arts, was one of the two paintings I submitted to a gallery in 1985 for approval. Our group, the SETA Movement, intended then to hold our first show at that gallery. 

We asked a fellow UE fine arts student and one of the gallery's resident artists, to intercede for us. But he, to our disappointment, returned with the word that our exhibit proposal was rejected. He said that the reason the gallery owner wasn't sold on our proposal was because she considered this painting an illustration. Today I'm still baffled why she said that, because any competent art practitioner could easily see that A Gift of War is a serious work of art , a pure painting, and not an illustration.

It seems that many are still confused about the difference between an illustration and 'pure or serious' painting. A pure painting can stand by itself, that is, it doesn't need a manuscript to give it significance, unlike an illustration which owes its existence from it. An illustration is a pictorial depiction of a story, or visual adornment for or of a product which is meant to be printed at the outset in commercial quantity. Thus, art for books, calendars, commercial ads, and greeting cards are all illustrations. 

The illustrative quality of a particular work doesn't lie in its having linear or non-painterly characteristics. A foreign art restorer who worked on Botong Francisco's large-scale painting "The Pageant of Commerce" remarked that "there is a thin line between illustration and painting in the linear style". He added that "Francisco's painting is a prime example of linear painting where lines and contours appear like cut-outs". He was in effect saying that that Botong Francisco painting is almost like an illustration because of its linear quality. 

I don't agree. I have seen several illustrations that are non-linear and some almost abstract in style, where the brushworks are loose and painterly and the edges of the images blurred. 

On the other hand, to further prove my point, I will cite the frescoes of Luca Signorelli and Diego Rivera, Michelangelo's "Doni Madonna", and the paintings by the Pre-Raphaelites, to name a few, as prime examples of 'linear' works that are pure paintings, not illustrations.

Well, that is how I understand it. I'd welcome the comment of anyone who has a different take on the matter.

8. UNORIGINALITY IN ART

Picasso's painting "Two Women Running on the Beach" inspired me to do the first painting in the photo album below, to which I originally gave the title, "A & E After Discovering the Joy of Sex". A and E are Adam and Eve. I asked a friend, a collector of my works, May Reyes, if the title is risque, and she answered that it is. 

So, I re-titled this work "Candy Serpents", a title I thought innocuous enough, that now, I no longer fear being branded blasphemous by the Fundamentalists out there. The colorful line drawings of serpents on the other hand, were copies of the doodles done by my younger son, Karel Andrei, when he was eight years old.

The "Candy Serpents" is a prime example of appropriation. It is not plagiarism, in my opinion, nor a reproduction, nor a forgery. That's because I acknowledged and gave credit to my sources of inspiration, did revisions of the originals, situated the images in a context, concept, and composition entirely my own, and signed the finished work with my name.

Being influenced or inspired by, and borrowing or even 'stealing' from the art of other artists is nothing new. Painters have been doing that for centuries either for practice or because they feel that they have something new to add to the original artwork. I see nothing wrong with that provided the appropriating artists give credit to the artists who have inspired or influenced them. What is also important is that a new twist or look be given to the new version of a painting by another artist.

Pablo Picasso, who was touted as the most inventive artist of the 20th century was not immune to appropriation. The neck and head of the left-hand figure in "Two Women Running on the Beach", which inspired my version, was borrowed from Ingres's painting of Thetis in the painting "Jupiter and Thetis". Another Picasso work, "Three Women Bathing" was also inspired by the naked figures in another Ingres painting, "The Turkish Bath" - although those figures of course were all subjected to Picasso's trademark distortion. Picasso also did several variations of Delacroix's Women of Algiers series, and his own interpretations of El Greco's painting "Portrait of Jorge Manuel", Velasquez's "Las Meninas", and David's "Rape of the Sabine Women". 

Picasso's revolutionary work, the proto-cubist "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" (1907) was markedly influenced by African art. This painting depicts five whores inside a brothel, three of which look or are trying to look like primitive Africans. The face of the woman at left has a distinct Negroid complexion, while the two women at right wore African tribal masks - to hide their faces presumably. Picasso, the co-inventor of Cubism, also revealed that it was the French painter Paul Cezanne who gave him and George Braque the idea of seeing and portraying all natural objects as mere  cylinders, spheres, cones, and cubes.

We can also trace the lineage of Edouard Manet's famous "Olympia". The immediate predecessor of that painting is Titian's "Venus of Urbino", which was inspired in turn by an earlier painting, the "Sleeping Venus", by Titian's illustrious colleague who died young, Giorgione. Even Paul Gauguin's "Nevermore", and my own painting "My Serenade" were variations also of that Titian masterwork. .

Another Manet painting, the "Le Dejeuner sur l'Herbe (Breakfast on the Grass)" was inspired by another Giorgione painting, the "Concert Champetre". 

Salvador Dali, joined the fray too, so to speak, when he painted a not so exact copy of Vermeer's "The Lacemaker". But prior to becoming a surrealist and painting his version of the Lacemaker, Dali first went through his impressionist and cubist phases, obviously because of his admiration for Camille Pissarro and Picasso. Even Dali's surrealist works decidedly show the influence of another painter who came before him - Giorgio de Chirico - the founder of Scuola Metafisica or Metaphysical School. De Chirico's mysterious landscapes littered with objects with no logical connection to each other and to reality and stretching to infinity were perhaps the models Dali based his surrealist landscapes on.

There are also Filipino painters who copied and signed with their own names paintings by other artist, like a painter I met in 1978 in SSS Village who did exact and high-quality reproductions of Amorsolo's paintings. There was also a schoolmate who did skillful copies of Juan Luna's "Spoliarium" and a serenade scene by Botong Francisco. 

Copying the painting of an old master isn't illicit if you follow these three conditions: first, the painting you'll do is not the same size as the original work you'll copy; second, the signature you'll put on your work is your own and not the original master's signature; and third, you'll mention also that your painting is after the work of the original master. 

An artist friend told me that their instructor in  painting required his students to submit as their plates copies of paintings of the masters they admired. Meanwhile, another instructor from the same university even encouraged his students to do paintings similar to those churned out by him which he would sign if they are up to his standards. My artist friend followed his suggestion. He did a painting after that instructor's style, which must have been competently done, because it was signed by the instructor and later on was bought by an art collector.

As to sculptors, incidents of appropriation by them have occurred here in the Philippines. There was a case where a fine arts professor submitted as his competition entry two human sculptural figures made by his student, which he jazzed up with appendages and other adornments original to him. That work won first prize in the art competition. The professor claimed he had the permission of his student to use her discarded sculptural pieces, which the student denied, if I remember correctly.

Another more well-known controversy involved an artist who did a sculpture of a seemingly levitating supine woman with outstretched arms, with only her long hair connecting her to the ground or pedestal. The husband of the Dutch sculptor who created a similar work claimed that the Filipino sculptor just copied part of his wife Elizabeth Stientra's public installation in the Netherlands titled "The Virgins of Appeldoorn". 

The Filipino sculptor denied that, asserting that he arrived at his concept using his own imagination. Which is probably true, because as I have mentioned in an earlier essay, two artists from different places and different times may come up with the same art idea inadvertently without them knowing of the work of the other. Besides, there are lots of levitating women sculptures created already, all or some of which must have been inspired by the levitating Linda Blair photo from the 1973 film "The Exorcist".

Those two cases could be just matters of simple appropriation. What's wrong, or even downright criminal, is forgery, where an artist made an exact copy of an artwork by another artist and then signed it with the forged signature of the original artist. Plagiarism is also wrong. It is when an artist claims as his original a work he just copied.

Reproductions or copies of famous works signed with the copying artists names, on the other hand, is a tricky case. If the copy is after a work by a master long dead, the copying artist is forgiven. He is just trying to make a living after all. But copyright infringement and plagiarism issues arise when the copied works were done by contemporaries or by artists who have died relatively recently.

There are many gray areas on this issue. But to artists who still crave to appropriate, borrow or copy the work of another, my advice is do so, by all means. That is the only way you'll get it out of your system and rid yourself of your fixation. But please, do not claim what painting you'll come up with as one hundred percent your own. Give credit where credit is due. Do not forget to mention the artwork and the artist who have inspired or influenced you. And do it promptly, please. Do not wait until someone pointed out that you only copied someone else's work before admitting that you did. That would be very embarrassing.

9. KIRSTEN AND EGON

I had an online tiff with Kirsten Anderberg. An American, she described herself as a feminist, historian, human rights activist, musician, and writer. She was also a 1997 graduate of the Whittier Law School. So, she must be a full-pledged lawyer by now. Awesome credentials indeed, anyway you look at it. And I, who didn't finished college, was definitely in awe.

Our conversation began amiably enough. A fan apparently of my artworks, she offered to do a write-up on me and my art. But she got nasty and started to label me a male chauvinist and homophobe when I began contradicting her so-called  'feminist' views which I thought unfair and out of line. In the end, she withdrew her offer to write about me, to which I replied, good riddance! I said that I wouldn't want to collaborate with a person who goes ballistic everytime she's contradicted.

Our disagreement was caused mainly by the paintings I did of nude female models featured in the girlie magazines I kept at home. Kirsten wondered why I was doing only female nudes. She asked me to add male nude paintings to my repertoire, to which I answered that it's a big no-no for me, because naked male bodies disgust me. Apparently, she overlooked , the "hahaha..." I end my answer with to indicate that I'm just being facetious. She assailed my saying that, because she must have thought my disgust real. She quickly presumed that i was homophobic, which word she, who claimed to be a writer, thought meant hater of males. Homophobic actually meant a person who dislikes or is prejudiced against  homosexuals.

She next told me that she can't quite believed that I see nothing beautiful in Michelangelo's naked male sculptures. Well, which artist won't be entranced by them. In fact, when I was still in art school, Michelangelo's paintings of powerful males were the first art works I tried to emulate. I was so enthralled by Michelangelo that I bought two books that featured his art. 

But Kirsten should understand that when an artist admires male nude artworks, it doesn't follow that that artist will be inspired to also create male nude artworks. Not wanting to paint naked male bodies doesn't imply hating them, or the male specie in general. Kirsten insistence on their being one and the same is stupid logic. 

My fascination with Michelangelo's paintings of naked males is over, and I'm now pouring my efforts in painting, not only female nudes, but also picture book illustrations and other paintings depicting a variety of subject matter.

Her supposedly observant eye then focused on a female nude painting I did, that of Marilyn Monroe in high heels---"Maria Lina Desnuda" (above). She remarked that Marilyn shouldn't be so glamorized because she led a sad life. She may have achieved fame and fortune, but she in truth felt exploited. That's why she succumbed to the lure of drugs and was so depressed that she eventually committed suicide. How true and how sad.

But what Kirsten said next floored me. Here, unedited, caps and all, are her exact words: " I ask you paint a few of her DEPRESSED, LONELY, DRUNK ALONE DESPERATE let's paint REAL portraits of who she was for once! Paint THOSE pictures, not this trite predictable made up crap of a "fairy tale" of what women never should want to be unless they want to be MISERABLE AND DIE YOUNG." 

What temerity! Who does she think she is? She has no right whatsoever to dictate to me what I should paint next. It's none of her business if I want to paint a thousand portraits of a glamorized Marilyn Monroe oozing with sex appeal and joy.

Kirsten's opinion on my art doesn't count. She may affixed to her name all those highfalutin titles, but still, I won't consider her "art criticism" valid and relevant because I can see at a glance that her knowledge about art is sparse and threadbare. The only opinions about art I highly esteem and put a high premium on are those of my peers---my fellow artists; those of the art critics, art dealers, art collectors; and most especially those of my family and friends, because I know that they always mean well even if they negatively criticized my artworks.

If she wanted more male nudes painted, I, a male painter, shouldn't be the one she should pester. She should ask the female and gay painters she knows to do it for her. Maybe, she should also request the best painter nowadays of pin-up style female nudes, Olivia de Berardinis, to cease painting those naked women in porn poses and stiletto heels and instead start painting male nudes from now on. 

And Kirsten should also stop lumping us painters of female nudes with pornographers. Nude female art, when executed tastefully, is not pornography. By tasteful, I mean those pictures where the models posed demurely and without showing in an obscene manner their private parts. 

But even the blatantly prurient quality of artworks are sometimes overlooked when done by artists of high historic value like Austrian artist Egon Schiele for example. Schiele was active at a time when pornographic drawings enjoyed a rather large clientele in Vienna.

Egon Schiele drew female and male nudes that obviously weren't meant as mere exercises in anatomical drawing. These nudes, of both adults and children, depicting them with their vulvas and phalluses in open display were obviously intended to arouse sexual desires.

Egon is considered one of Austria's significant artists. He could have stood out alone at the top and produced many more "wholesome" artworks had he lived longer. But he died young at age 28, during the Spanish flu pandemic in Europe in 1918, which also claimed the life of his great mentor Gustav Klimt.

Egon's drawings enthralled me. How I wish I could draw like him. My having two books about him is proof that I am his big fan. I could have acquired a third had I enough  money to buy the book of his nudes I saw on sale many years ago at the National Bookstore. To tell you the truth, these books on Schiele were what prompted me to try my hand at creating my own suite of nude paintings of women, minus the luridness, of course.

                                                                                

10. ON MULTIPLICITY OF STYLES

 

My painting "Bloody Mary" (above) clearly shows the stylistic gulf separating my current artworks from those I did in the 1980s up to the year 2007. A high school classmate remarked that he can't quite figure out my style. He said that my artworks don't have a distinct look that would readily identify them as mine. I replied that my having a multiplicity of styles was inevitable, considering that the artworks he saw in my portfolio were done over a period of more than thirty years.

I had a varied art career. My first professional works were paintings belonging to the social realist school, but with a surrealist twist a la Dali. I was an editorial cartoonist for several years and then textbook illustrator, jobs where I put my knack for cartooning and caricatures to good use. 

It was when I became a picture book illustrator that I can truly say that I've exhausted the limits of realism. My fairy tale illustrations were replete with minute details rendered in true "kutkutan" fashion. I eventually grew tired of that style, especially after a fellow painter described me as obsessive-compulsive and his writer-wife in turn predicted that I won't get rich because of the excessively long time I take to finish an illustration. Even though said in jest, their remarks were on point and stung me a little bit and got me worried. Thus, I changed style.

I'm not the only one who did. I could cite the names of numerous painters whose bodies of works would reveal several stylistic changes. Pablo Picasso was the most prominent and extreme example. Picasso was a child prodigy. He can already draw like Raphael when he was twelve years old, and he was just fifteen when he came out with paintings comparable to the mature works of the leader of the French Realist School, Gustave Courbet.

But Picasso wouldn't rest on his laurels. He chucked off that realist style for good in Paris when he created his poignant series of blue paintings. But before that, on the eve of his departure from Spain, he did a suite of pastel drawings more evocative of Roualt---with their dark outlines and simplified figures---than of Courbet. These, Picasso's Blue Period paintings done during his starving years, were pictures of sadness, poverty, and misfortune.

In 1907, Picasso came out with the landmark painting "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" which was to become the prototype for Cubism. He next came up with his Neo-classical series, where the figures this time are of robust proportions, quietly reminiscent of Michelangelo even if a bit simplified and distorted. The painting which many consider his masterpiece, the "Guernica", was apparently a fusion or synthesis of his cubist and neo-classic styles. Picasso went on to create in rapid succession more paintings of different forms and styles which art historians no longer bother to label or classify.

Another painter who have trekked the style spectrum, so to speak, was the surrealist Salvador Dali who started out as an impressionist. With the advent of cubism, he promptly did paintings that mimicked closely Picasso's. He also produced minimalist mixed-media abstracts when such were in vogue, and even what could be classified as a semi-abstract expressionist print where he used as tool in lieu of brushes an improvised grenade packed with nail shrapnels. When this so-called "apocalyptic granate" was detonated deep below a ravine, the nails embedded themselves on the surface of copper plates arranged like a box in the ravine leaving nail marks all over. Prints were made on large parchments using these copper plates one of which Dali jazzed up afterwards with an image of the Pieta and other adornments on the border using watercolor. The title of this piece is "Pieta of the Apocalypse of Saint John".

When Dali became a member of the surrealist movement he focused his efforts in creating dream-inspired paintings of mutating forms and double images rendered in his trademark stylized manner. But unlike Picasso who stuck to his violent deconstructions or distortion of the human figure to the end, Dali's imagery in his later years, especially in his large-scale religious paintings, showed a resurgent concern with correct anatomy. His last painting, a return to the minimalism of his youth, just depicted lines resembling an outline of the tail of a bird and a motif or two from a violin.

Other artists who've switched or used simultaneously different painting styles in the course of their career were, to name a few among the foreign painters, Camille Pissaro, George Braque, Wassily Kandinsky, Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Jackson Pollock, Frank Stella, Jasper Johns, and Stanley Spencer. Filipino artists who did the same were Nena Saguil, Alfredo Roces, Hernando Ocampo, Jerry Navarro, Federico Aguilar Alcuaz, David Medalla, Santiago Bose, and Bencab, among others. Vicente Manansala, who was the first proponent of cubism here didn't start out as a cubist. His earlier works were influenced somewhat by Botong Francisco.

So you see, switching styles doesn't really diminished a painter. True, an artist who changes styles often might just be the impressionable type, or one who is easily influenced by anything he regards as superior ---which I confess I sometimes am. But the opposite could in fact be truer, because hopping from style to style can also be a mark of versatility, or even ingenuity. It might actually be just a manifestation of the artist's restless spirit and fondness for novelty and experimentation.

11. DKNY EXPRESS

I painted DKNY Express in 2012. The jeepney image was a variant of a cartoon I designed and printed on t-shirts in 1992. The female guitarist figure in turn was an image I came up with after I switched style in 2008, and started experimenting and subjecting my human forms to simplification and distortion. I called the suite of paintings of slender females I produced during this period my 'slim series'.

This painting is closely connected with two of my UST High School classmates---Arn Cruz and Ray Espinosa. The DKNY of the title doesn't mean Donna Karan New York. It is the tongue-in-cheek abbreviation, or initialism, for Divisoria Kanto ng Ylaya (Divisoria corner Ylaya), which are places in Manila frequented by bargain-hunters. I first heard of 'Divisoria Kanto ng Ylaya' from Arn Cruz when he gave me and another classmate a lift in his car on our way home to Tondo. When I said that our house is just walking distance from Ilaya Street, he said something to this effect, "Ah, doon ka pala nakatira sa DKNY (Ah, so you live in DKNY)."

I initially planned to letter 'Viva Santo Niño' on the visor or headboard (or whatever it is called) of the jeepney and title this piece "Fiesta Serenade". But then Arn's DKNY joke came to mind, and that's it. I realized at once that DKNY Express is the better title because of its humor and wit. Thanks Arn for giving me the idea for the title.

Ray Espinosa, on the other hand, bought this painting. There was a time during the latter months of 2013 when I really need cash fast. And to sell fast, I offered this painting at a very low price to Ray. I even included as sweeteners two of my small abstracts on paper to the package. What Ray said after reading my message surprised me, very pleasantly. He said that I shouldn't sell my paintings cheap. He offered me an amount almost four times higher than what I quoted, which I of course accepted readily.

Thank you very much, Ray.

12. EROTIC AIR IN THE TALE OF RAPUNZEL

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm didn't have children in mind as their primary audience when they put out the first editions of their book, Kinder-und Hausmarchen (Children and Household Tales) in 1812 and 1815. It was only in the 1819 edition did they begin to eliminate passages with erotic content to make it more palatable to bourgeois morality and taste. For the curious out there, here is the English translation of an excerpt from "Rapunzel" as originally written and published in 1812:

"At first Rapunzel was afraid, but soon she took such a liking to the young king that she made an agreement with him: he was to come everyday and be pulled up. Thus they lived merrily and joyfully for a certain time, and the fairy did not discover anything until one day when Rapunzel began talking to her and said, "Tell me, Mother Gothel, why do you think my clothes have become too tight for me and no longer fit?"

So, there---Rapunzel became pregnant by the young king, which was the most natural and lovely state for her to be. My sensibilities may have been numbed by all the explicit videos I've watched, but I must say that I see nothing wrong in that very oblique mention of their amorous frolics. Therefore, to make my illustration adhere closely to the original spirit of the tale, I painted a half-eaten apple, symbolizing that most delicious of 'sins', at the lower right portion of the artwork.

13. ARTIST STATEMENT FOR LORD OF THE REEF

(Photo above: "Lord of the Reef"; 2007; acrylic on paper; 30 X 22 inches)

(Lalyn Buncab, curator of the Museum of the Dela Salle University, invited me to join an exhibit she's organizing. That was in early 2018. The show, MUKHA: PORTRAITS OF HISTORIES AND STORIES, had for its theme, portraits. Posted above is my piece for the show---the painting "Lord of the Reef". Below is my Artist Statement.)

ARTIST STATEMENT

This painting is a self-portrait---though not obviously so, because of the diving mask covering my face. If you look closely you'll discern that the eyes, eyebrows, and moustache of the diver are my eyes, eyebrows, and moustache. Also, the attire and diving gear were what I used to wear then. But even though this work is a self-portrait, the scene is just imaginary. I am just role-playing here. The painting is a portrayal of my fascination with the sea and my admiration for and awe of spear-fishermen who I considered before as sportsmen par excellence.

But why "Lord of the Reef"? The title is also a question. Who really rule the deep---its fiercer  denizens like the barracudas or sharks, or the intruding humans, whose greed and wanton fishing methods could only lead to the depletion of marine resources?

The persona I assumed in this painting is anti-heroic, so to speak. I said that I considered spear-fishermen as sportsmen par excellence. That was before. But no longer. I now see those who are into spear and deep-sea fishing for sports as no better than those who hunt for trophies in Africa. If they must kill fish, they should do it out of necessity---not for fun, not for thrills, and certainly not to earn bragging rights as champion sea hunters.

--- May 5, 2018

14. VHENG AND THE SUPREMACY OF EVE

(Bottom photo: Vheng is the lady standing at right. Others in the photo, clockwise from left, are myself, Jerry Dean,  Oca Magos, Bert and Dulce Falsis, and Jojo Garcia)

The title of the painting in the photo-collage above is "Supremacy of Eve". It is an acrylic on paper work measuring 30 x 22 inches. It was bought by a former and very much younger schoolmate from the University of the East School of Music and Fine Arts, Elvira Gonzaga. We call her Vheng.

Vheng was one of those from our school who made good in life. As I have said before, Vheng tops my list of successful Fine Arts friends because painters like me hold art collectors in high esteem. I'm sure Jojo Garcia and Oca Magos regard her highly too. We three are the full-time painters in our group. We owed Vheng a lot. She never hesitated to buy our works everytime we offer them to her.

Vheng must have liked the Supremacy of Eve per se. But what could have added to her interest in it was the fact that this painting was written about in a newspaper.

The highly-respected art critic Constantino Tejero wrote a review of my second solo show at the Crucible Gallery titled "Illustration art as fine art". This painting was one of those shown in the exhibit. The review appeared in the June 25, 2007 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. This review was a gift Tino gave me without him knowing because June 25 happened to be my birthday.

Below is an excerpt from that review:

"...But even more than his delicate colorism, the viewer appreciates his fine rendering of form. His illustration skill goes beyond mere visual narrative.

"The viewer can immediately see it in the painstaking details of a piece such as "Supremacy of Eve": the grains of the loose soil; the ribbing of the banana leaves; and even how the light falls on the front and the back of each leaf; the yellow overripe bananas on the ground; the tiny yellow and purple flowers of some weeds."

I had the most difficulty doing research for this painting. As you can see, this work required a lot of banana plant references. Since I only have a few clippings of that at home, I had to go out with my camera and bike to search for real banana plants to shoot. The effort took me to Dagat-dagatan near the boundary of Malabon. It was on a vacant lot along Dagat-dagatan Avenue that I found a dozen or more banana plants. 

There was a barung-barong (hovel) on the edge of the lot beside the road. The hovel's window was open. When I peered inside, I saw sleeping on a mat on the floor a couple, with the man only in his briefs. Boy was I surprised! Hahaha.... I got scared too. I surely wouldn't want to wake them up. So, I just decided to do fast what I came there to do, to take pictures of banana plants. I'm still wondering to this day what that man would have done to me had he woke up and saw me taking pictures on what appears to be his lot.

Incidentally, the barung-barong is located in what is probably the Kalookan or eastern part of Dagat-dagatan. The western and northern part of Dagat-dagatan belong to Navotas and Malabon respectively. Dagat-dagatan up to the early 1970s was all water---a real lake dotted with fishpens. It was drained in the mid-1970s to enable the government to use the reclaimed land for its resettlement project.

Nick Joaquin, in his book "A Question of Heroes", mentioned that the city's name Kalookan was probably derived from Manila Bay which could be seen in the old days from the ridge where the city hall is now located. Bay is translated into 'look' in Tagalog. Or perhaps, the name was inspired by that former lake below the city hall ridge. Dagat-dagatan translates into false or imitation sea that's why I have the feeling, just a guess actually, that Dagat-dagatan might also have been called Look-lookan a century or so ago. Hence, the name Kalookan.

15. BIG APPLE DREAMS' TWIN

Although abstract, "White Head" (top image) is the 'twin painting' of the very figurative "Big Apple Dreams" (bottom image). I consider them twins because I did and finished both paintings almost simultaneously using the same oil paints I had on my palette. The surplus paints after I concluded a day of working on Big Apple Dreams was what I applied afterwards on the abstract canvas. Even though I'm satisfied at how this abstract painting came out, I was still pleasantly surprised when somebody bought it. White Head was part of Kartini Gallery's Mission Artist Philippines 2018 group exhibit at the Alabang Country Club.

I originally titled this abstract "Fliptop Champion", in reference to that disgusting so-called modern "balagtasan" where declaiming protagonists shout expletives, obscene words, and insults at each other, instead of arguing using lilting  poetic wholesome words like in the balagtasan of old. I decided to change this painting's title to White Head to erase its link to that dirty present day verbal joust on Youtube, Fliptop.

White Head is part of what I call my Rorschachist Abstraction series---so called because the titles I gave to the paintings in this suite were based on images I seem to discern in the finished artworks. The Rorschach or Inkblot Test, named after its creator, Hermann Rorschach, is a psychological test where a patient is asked to describe what forms he sees in mirror-image inkblot marks on paper. The psychologist then used the patient's interpretation of the marks to adjudge what that patient's state of mind or personality characteristics are. It has been used to detect latent thought disorder in people, especially in cases where patients seem to hold back, and wouldn't volunteer to describe their thinking processes openly.

Even though my paintings are mainly of the realist mode, I have in my list of favorite artists thirteen abstractionists who are also masters of the realist technique---like Raul Isidro, Lao Lian Ben, Gus Albor, Lito Carating, Rock Drilon, Buds Convocar, Ross Capili, Max Balatbat, Isagani Fuentes, Fitz Herrera, Michael Pastorizo, Alain Hablo, and Josep Pascual. Their art have inspired me, and drove me into dabbling in abstraction. With good result I guess, because after my abstract works "Evolution of the Naos" and "Brown Cliffs of Nowhere" earned accolades from a gallery owner and a few fellow artists, I was further on encouraged to not merely dabble in abstraction.

But some may question my leap into abstraction. I have been a realist painter for more than three decades now, and many art theorists looked askance at painters whose shift to abstraction was rather abrupt. Well, all I can say is my shift was not abrupt, because I have been at it, experimenting in creating new forms since 2008.

Unlike some child abstract expressionists who've gained prominence lately---thanks to online hype and sleek marketing strategies--- what I worried about in my early youth was how to get my drawings of the human form right. The thought of leapfrogging into being an abstract expressionist by creating art using the drip and splatter technique never entered my mind then.

The instant abstractionists have not done right, in my opinion. They have not hewed closely to what art and being an artist is about. The word art after all was derived from the Latin "ars", which means skill. Thus, painters who aspire to do abstractions should hone their skill in drawing and realistic painting first. They should first learn the rules before daring to break them.

(Top image of the photo collage below: "Evolution of the Naos"; Bottom image: "Brown Cliffs of Nowhere")

                                                                             

 16. VINTAGE BOOKSTORE, VINTAGE BOOK

(Above: "Old Rex Bookstore"; 1999; acrylic on paper; 14 X 9 inches; Rey Fontelera collection)

In 1999, Leonard Aguinaldo, Nemi Miranda, Steve Santos, and I was commissioned by Rex Printing to do an artwork each for their 2000 calendar. It was a special year for them because it was Rex Bookstore's 50th anniversary. I was asked to illustrate a 1950s scene of their original bookstore along Azcarraga (now C.M.Recto Avenue) in Quiapo.

I came up with the illustration above which took me around three weeks to finish. I don't remember the exact size of this acrylic on paper piece, but it must be around 14 X 9 inches. This illustration is just a reconstruction of sorts. I never saw how the old Rex Bookstore looked like, nor was I given a photo of it as reference. What was provided me was just an old photo of the owners, Mr. and Mrs. Rey Fontelera, who are shown here manning the counter.

I just used my imagination and lots of research to come up with that scene. But the glass showcase and cash register are authentic. Rex still has them in their main office in Quezon City where I made sketches of them. The children in the picture are supposed to be students of my alma mater, Holy Child Catholic School in Tondo, as can be guessed by my schoolmates from their uniforms. The model for the boy was my older son Bahgee.

The books stacked on the table at the lower right hand corner are vintage school books which I have in my collection. I bought them  from a bookshop along Recto Avenue way back in the early 1990s. Take note of the brownish book on top of the heap. That is Camilo Osias' "Philippine Readers-Book Six". I still have that book to this day, and I'm now rereading some stories from it. What is most remarkable about this book are the three or four illustrations done by Fernando Amorsolo.

I understand Adriano Natividad's regret. Ads was the former assistant art director of Phoenix Publishing House. He has a Philippine Readers-Book One which has Amorsolo as its sole illustrator. One of Ads' friends said that that book was much sought after by collectors, and would fetch a tidy sum if he decides to sell it. But the problem is the book is no longer in mint condition, with many of the pictures cut out and the others colored with crayons by his grandchild.

Encouraged by Ads' story, I returned to the bookshop where I bought my Philippine Readers hoping to find a Book One copy. I scoured the shelves in search of that book. The shop still has vintage books all right, but there is no longer any Philippine Readers.

17. MY MOST BORROWED ILLUSTRATION

 

Of all the illustrations I did, The Wild Swans was the one most borrowed by bloggers. I'm flattered. But I'll be flattered more if the people who shared this image asked permission from me first, or better yet, from the real copyright owner, Reni Roxas, before posting this image on their sites. When I searched the internet, I discovered that when you googled Arnaldo Mirasol, around twelve blog sites will appear with the Wild Swans as cover photo. Last I checked, here is the list of those sites: Sacred Familiar, Watercolordreams, indigodreams, sweetpeapath, sosuperawesomw, Dangerous Prayer, illustratosphere, Altared Spaces, and  traveling ghost. Of these, only traveling ghost made it a point to obtain my permission.

So, Reni Roxas, publisher of Tahanan Books, must have chosen right when she picked The Wild Swans to add to her collection---instead of The Little Mermaid, which many consider as my best work. Reni said that she wants the Wild Swans because it can stand by itself, that is, it doesn't need any manuscript to define or explain it, or give it significance. Many agreed with her, because admirers of The Wild Swans see it as not just a "mere illustration": they almost always describe it as like a surrealist painting. Which is a compliment in my opinion, because surrealism occupies a high niche in my pantheon of artistic styles.

Today, the Wild Swans is turning out to be my most in-demand work too.There were  requests in the past from people who wanted me to do a copy of this illustration for them. But they baulked in closing the deal when I said that I must do the remake of this really big. This Illustration is rather diminutive in scale, you see---it measures only 10 X 12.5.inches. What I had in mind was do a version in oil on a canvas measuring 3 X 4 feet, or even 4 X 6 feet. Only Kartini Asia Gallery owner Nina Malvar and Pinto Art Museum's Dr. Joven Cuanang agreed that the remake should really be big. Dr. Joven even asked for 'the privilege to purchase' the large-scale oil version for the Pinto Museum. He said that it would be lovely to have it there.

Months ago, a writer---a poet primarily---who writes in Spanish and English sent me a message asking my permission for her to use my illustration for the Wild Swans as cover photo for her Facebook page. She said that it is meaningful in times like this, that it is beautiful and uplifting. I told her that the copyright to that work and all other classic fairy tales illustrations I did is owned by Reni Roxas, publisher of Tahanan Books for Young Readers. Reni bought from me not only the copyright, but also that very artwork and several others besides.

I added though that perhaps Reni won't mind because, anyway, the work won't be used for  commercial purposes. That is what is meant by 'fair use' in the copyright infringement laws, I think. I myself won't mind. I feel honored in fact that a published writer from Latin America would find my work worthy to be the cover of her Facebook page. I just requested that she write in the caption my name as artist and Tahanan Books for Young Readers as publisher.

18. THUMBELINA ILLUSTRATIONS

Before I began doing the illustrations for a book of Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales, Tahanan Books publisher Reni Roxas lent me several foreign picture books for me to peruse and to be inspired or even challenged by. One of those books was Wayne Anderson's "Thumbelina". 

True enough, I was indeed so inspired by one of Anderson's illustrations that I patterned the composition of my Thumbelina illustration after it, with the difference that the human figure and the other elements in the picture I drew are realistic or un-stylized.

Anderson's Illustrations, although cartoony, rest on a higher level of artistry than comics Illustrations and manga or animation and anime, all of which are but black and white line drawings colored digitally. The Thumbelina character plus the flora, fowls, and fauna in Anderson's pictures were drawn in a cartoonish and charmingly distorted manner, yes, but they were painted the way a fine artist would paint, by hand, using watercolor, with touches of colored pencils perhaps. The resulting illustrations are therefore prized collectibles that any art collector would crave to add to his collection.

My Thumbelina was one of the illustrations that were very much in-demand on the opening day of my solo show at the Crucible Gallery in 2001. Four art collectors wanted to acquire it. One of them was my former UST High School classmate and now Meralco President Atty. Ray Espinosa. But Thumbelina was already reserved for and eventually acquired by Mark Yap, who also added the book's cover art, "The Little Mermaid", to his collection.

Incidentally, I was truly expecting Reni to choose Thumbelina to be the cover art for the book "Once Upon a Time".  But she chose The Little Mermaid instead. Which is not a bad choice, come to think of it.

Thumbelina had been illustrated by many illustrious artists, both past and present. The most notable ones in my opinion were those done by, well, the British Wayne Anderson, the  Russian Gennady Spirin, the Ukrainian Galya Zinko, and the Austrian Lisbeth Zwerger.

Since it took me around three weeks to finish each illustration for "Once Upon a Time", I completed the eleven illustrations for the book only after about a year. That's a veritable snail's pace, I would concede, especially when compared to the pace of other Filipino illustrators who can finish a book in one month. 

But I can't help it, being the obsessive-compulsive person that I am, who won't declare an artwork done until I saw that it won't compare too unfavorably with the works of the illustrators I admire.

Part 2. Kasining

Below are the reviews I wrote on the art of fellow artistst. I'll begin with Isagani Fuentes. Why him? Well that's because he was the one who suggested that I try my hand in writing art reviews. A good idea, I thought. That would give me the chance to put to practical use the hobby I took up from when I was a kid---reading.

Because it was Gani who first expressed belief in my competence as an art writer, the very first review I wrote was about him. Anyway, he truly deserved to be written about. The paintings he shared on his Facebook page will convince you of that.

I am not really a writer. Oh, perhaps I am, but I'm just an amateur. I am a painter, a picture painter. A professional one I can say because I earn my living painting. If there are self-taught painters---which I'm not because I took up Fine Arts in college---there are also self-taught writers. I am one of them. I didn't studied journalism nor majored in English. Everything I know about writing I learned just by voracious reading.

1. SUBTLETY AND RESTRAINT

Isagani Fuentes and I are not old friends. We only met at Facebook---he added me and I confirmed. Readily, for I saw at once that he is a kindred spirit: a fellow artist intent on pursuing his muse. But I was surprised upon learning that he was not even a fine arts student in college. He is a commerce graduate who now teaches full-time in a grade school in Marikina. 

It seems that Gani is one of those with inborn artistic talents, who were forced, perhaps because of economic necessity, or perhaps because their parents looked with disdain on painting as a profession, to take up a more practical and probably more lucrative course. But the craving to create art never went away.

Now, Gani talks of leaving teaching for good to paint full-time. I, acting like a concerned parent, dissuaded him, telling him that it would become difficult for him to make both ends meet if he will rely solely on the sales of his paintings. Although his wife is also a teacher, her salary I presume would be barely enough to put their two grade-schooler kids to college and maintain at the same time their current lifestyle. I suggested that the best thing for him to do would be to just take a one year leave from teaching. That way, he can devote all his time to painting, while still retaining the option, if things don`t turned out as he`d expected, to go back to a career paying a regular salary. 

I am now taking a respite from writing about myself and my art, to write about Gani`s, particularly his series on pre-hispanic jars dug up (unearthed) by archaeologists.

I was instantly fascinated when I saw his paintings because they are so different from mine. I usually turned out colorful artworks , so, I find Gani`s chromatic restraint remarkable and refreshing. Gani`s use of subdued color schemes reveals his mature artistic sensibility and innate flair for design. His watercolors of jars combined two extreme techniques in twentieth century painting---Andrew Wyeth`s sharp focus realism and Piet Mondrian`s hard-edged abstraction. 

While Gani rendered his jars with near photographic precision, he just painted his gridded backgrounds flat, with no illusion of space or perspective, whatsoever. Such penchant for flatness reminded me of the paintings of Arturo Luz. Luz would have been floored by Gani`s paintings. He would have exhibited them with alacrity in his gallery, if it is still open today. With their clean lines and grids, and the zen-like aura they project, Luz, I`m sure can`t help but be fascinated, too. 

Gani was not the first to come up with this type of painting. I remember Nikulas Lebajo`s series of exhibitions at the Luz Gallery several years ago, where he showed paintings depicting bottles and jars arranged all in a row and one row on top of another. But the similarity between Gani`s and Nikulas` art ends there, in their format; because the latter`s paintings, with their pared down images, leaned more towards abstraction, while Gani`s still retained traces of the sharp focus realism espoused by Wyeth.

Gani may have derived his iconography from Nikulas Lebajo, but it may have been inadvertent. But even if he did some conscious borrowing, let us not take that against Gani for he was not the first artist to have done so. Painters have been doing it for centuries. Even the ever-inventive and supposedly original Picasso admitted to being influenced by primitive African sculptures when he painted his landmark work, Les Demoiselles d"Avignon". And Nikulas, for his part, may have gotten the idea for his jar paintings from an ad for Dos Equis Beer. The art for that ad which I saw in Playboy Magazine, bore an "uncanny" resemblance to Nikulas Lebajo`s paintings. But then, of course, the derivation may also be inadvertent.

Anyway, as a parting note, let me say that Isagani Fuentes is one artist who`s worth one`s while to watch. His paintings are palpable proofs that inherent artistic talent can`t be bottled up forever. It will find a way, slowly and surely, to blaze up and, in his case, to show to all and sundry that in art making, subtlety and restraint do have their charms.

---2010

2. THE ABSTRACT VISIONS OF SIR BUDS

("The Enigma of the Automated Man" is the image at top right of the photo collage above.)

I first saw an rtwork by Buds Convocar during an exhibition at the University of the East Main Campus at C.M. Recto Avenue, way back in 1983, if I remember the year correctly. The title of the piece is "The Enigma of the Automated Man". It is a mixed-media piece, painted in monochromatic hues, depicting the skull-like or maybe robotic face of a man. Attached to this face are wires and springs, while relief cut-outs of lightning-like images adorned the artwork's upper part. I wouldn't venture an explanation of this artwork, but I suppose that I detect a thematic pattern in Bud's art.

But before delving deeper into Bud's recurring thematic concerns, let me expound a little on the issue of what really is abstraction. I noticed that some artists, even those who styled themselves as abstractionists, are confused about the true nature of abstraction. There is a guy who insisted that an abstract painting contains no recognizable objects, whether natural or man-made, in it. Nothing could be more wrong. 

To clear things up, what we should do is to first look up what is really meant by the word abstract. A dictionary defines abstract as having only intrinsic (basic) form with LITTLE or no pictorial representation; as a verb, abstract may also mean 'to summarize'. I emphasized the word 'little' In the first definition because that is really the operative word, the key to abstract's real meaning. So there, an abstract painting is also allowed to have little pictorial representation. And summarizing an artwork by the way doesn't mean erasing completely the recognizable images of objects, but merely simplifying or reducing them to their simplest and most basic form. 

Let's allow the art critic George Heard Hamilton to have the last word on this issue. He wrote:

"Abstract is a more general term. An abstraction may be non-objective, but the word also refers to many kinds of non-realistic paintings and sculptures, especially to those in which references to nature are remote or oblique, as in Cubist, Futurist, or Expressionist art." 

Also, according to him, those paintings with totally new forms having no relation at all to objective nature, are more precisely referred to as works of non-objective art, or nonobjective abstraction.

Now, going back to Buds---I said that I detect a thematic pattern in his art making. Well, anyone who'll look closely can also see that. Gino Dormiendo, who once wrote a review on Buds art, have written on it extensively. He wrote that the paintings by Buds then on show were inspired mostly by Erich von Daniken's book, "Chariots of the Gods", which tells of von Daniken's theory that extra-terrestrial astronauts have visited the earth during prehistoric times, and were responsible for the sudden emergence of ancient civilizations. According to von Daniken, the flying angels or divine beings mentioned in the bible and other ancient books were really the ETs or extraterrestrials of ancient times who share with the primitive earthmen their superior knowledge and technology.

And Bud's way of depicting that supposed fact was by including in his paintings the images of dials, knobs, wires, gauges, and other gadgetry of a high-tech alien spaceship. To further reinforce that element of extra-terrestrial or cosmic mystery, Buds also teasingly gave his paintings esoteric and arcane titles. 

Well, those elements were present in the "Enigma of the Automated Man", and his quite recent and current abstractions. It looks as if Bud's main thematic concern then and now is what effect technology would have on the future of mankind. Of course, he veered off somewhat from that theme when he did images of musicians, carousel horses, fishes, monkeys, and the like, but still, the automated or robotic attributes of those images are still very evident. 

As to technique, Buds's method is as sophisticated as his theme. His paintings are well thought out, impeccably composed, harmoniously colored, and neat. He is no exponent of the slapdash bravura espoused by and excelled in by many abstractionists. Let's admit that many a five year old painter wannabe could also churned out artworks resembling those made by Jackson Pollock and the other abstract expressionists.

As an example, I remember a sculptor's 'two-man' exhibit with his then five year old granddaughter. This granddaughter exhibited a suite of abstract paintings which on the surface were all appealing and competently done. But of course, all of us serious artists and also the art critics ought to dismiss those paintings she did as insignificant. For now. 

I, for one, am of the conviction that an artist should first be well-honed on the intricacies of drawing and the other fundamentals of artistic techniques, before he should venture out to take the modernist or abstract route. 

But the granddaughter's precocious foray into art, despite its being limited to the drip and splatter technique was a good start. Who knows, this granddaughter may decide later on to pursue art as a full time career. If that happens, then the abstracts she did when she was five would gain enormous significance, especially if she got elevated to major painter status.

Many of you would asked why I called Buds Convocar, Sir Buds. Well, the answer is he really was my sir. Although I'm four years older than him, he was one of my teachers when I resumed after seven years my art schooling at the UE School of Fine Arts. I remember him then as very exacting and strict, which on hindsight I now see as a reflection of his self-discipline and no-nonsense approach to life: traits which were the exact opposite then of the attitude of a very undisciplined me.

Almost thirty years have passed by and Buds went on from being an art teacher to a full-time professional painter who've garnered awards in several prestigious art competitions. He was also a president once of the Saturday Group and the Art Association of the Philippines, which attested to the respect accorded him by his peers in the Philippine art scene. Seeing his single-minded devotion to art, and his persistent striving to perfect his technique and invent new forms, I must admit that it would be difficult for me to dissociate myself from Sir Buds and cease being his fan.

---2011

3. DEX'S HEX

There is a song whose line , "Bewitched, bothered, and bewildered", would precisely describe the state I`m in after viewing Dex Fernandez`s artworks. I`m also dazed and amazed by their originality. True, I suspect that his style is but an amalgam of various styles and techniques, but the way he fused his various influences into a coherent artwork would make this artwork his very own original creation.

Let`s take as an example his installations of robot-like sculptures, titled "Hi". These robots are sculptures in-the-round, being three- dimensional and free-standing. But I would assert that they are also paintings. Dex told me that these robots were made of plywood which were then wrapped in canvas, and on which are painted images strongly evocative of anime, manga, graffiti and even Alfonso Ossorio`s iconography. If Robert Rauschenberg had what he called his "combine paintings", Dex Fernandez is now showing us his "combine sculptures". I propose to call these objects "tattooed sculptures"

Which brings to mind Manuel Baldemor`s "paintures" and Angelo Baldemor`s painted still-life wood carvings. I`m not saying that Dex`s sculptures are similar to those by the Baldemors. They are not. Because, although also painted, the wood carvings by the Baldemors, are still basically sculptures, whereas Dex`s objects are sculptures and paintings rolled into one. And that:s the reason why I`m saying that Dex is doing original work. This is the first time that I see, in the Philippine art scene at least, sculptures of this kind.

I would also classify as a tattooed sculpture a similar work of his, the humongous though less robotic, "I Feel Like Nausea".This sculpture, which is more abstract in treatment, and twelve feet in height, was supposed to be shown at the Technological University of the Philippines`s (TUP) alumni art exhibit at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) last October 14. But since the CCP`s main gallery cannot accommodate artworks that high, it was decided not to include this sculpture in the exhibit anymore. A pity. It would have staggered many.

Now, where did Dex get the inspiration for such artworks? Which artist gave him the idea? I cannot place his art. I'm baffled. That`s why for now, I`ll say that like, Prudencio Lamarroza, Igan d`Bayan, Roberto Feleo and Gabby Barredo, Dex Fernandez belong to that exclusive class of Filipino artists whom I consider as true originals.

Dex Fernandez is a graduate of TUP. He used to share a studio in Marikina with close friends Froilan Calayag and Mark Andy Garcia, who are also TUP graduates. He's into serious art making full-time and also does on the side graphic works like designing posters and cd covers. 

The latter activity, which he deprecatingly called his "raket", probably inspired him to create another type of artwork, which can be considered mixed-media paintings, being two-dimensional. I`m referring to the enlarged photographs, which he jazzed up with acrylics, pen and ink, serigraphed designs and even embroidery. The well-known artist duo, Gilbert and George, may have given him the idea of manipulating photographs for pure artistic ends, but Dex insisted that they have not. 

I believe him because as I have written before, it is entirely possible for artists from different parts of the world to come up with similar or even identical ideas. And besides, if we juxtaposed, an artwork by Dex with an artwork by Gilbert and George, we wouldn't find any difficulty in pointing out the differences between them. Dex`s mixed-media painting, "Team Bacterium , RTR (Ready to Riot)" would be a case in point.

This is an enlarged photograph, 4 X 3 feet in size, showing a rank of teen-age boys and a tattooed robot. To these photographed images were added doodles reminiscent of current pop iconography, cartoon-like images that would have been called graffiti art had they been painted instead on walls in public places. Gilbert and George is not into that. Staples of pop art, like cartoons, animes and mangas are not their concern. 

But that is Dex's world. The very sub-title, Ready to Riot,  evokes a way of life that is apparently now, because those words would readily be associated with juvenile or frat culture, of which animation and tattoos are a big part of. By the way, I presume that there`s no need for me to explain the meaning of this painting. The title, I suppose, is clue enough. 

Dex said that he'd had one solo show, so far, at the Pablo Gallery. He`s still very young and I expect him to mount several solo shows in the near future. If the art works featured here are any indication, there is reason for me to believe that Dex`s future creations would still perplex me. And that`s a good thing. I would very much prefer to be baffled than be bored.

- 2011

                                                                                

4. POP ART ACCORDING TO JOPUNK

Essay 4. POP ART ACCORDING TO JOPUNK

By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol

Pop art may no longer be called pop nowadays, but the artists belonging to the North American newbrow and Japanese superflat movements share the same goal as their 1960s predecessors---the celebration of kitsch and its elevation to high art status. By celebration of kitsch, I refer to these artists`s usage of popular mass media icons, animation, manga and cartoon-like characters, and images of consumer goods as subject matter for their paintings. 

Pop`s family tree shows the direct line of descent all too clearly; Andy Warhol spawned Jeff Koons, and Jeff Koons spawned Takashi Murakami. I don`t know if we Pinoys already have our own term for it, but pop art Philippine-style is visibly resurgent hereabouts. I`m not sure if I remember right, but right off, I can cite as the more visible practitioners of this genre here, Ronaldo Ventura, Farley Del Rosario, Luis Lorenzana and Anthony Palo. I`m adding Jojo Garcia, a.k.a. as Jopunk, to the list.

He was a classmate at the University of the East School of Fine Arts in the early nineteen eighties, although he transferred later on to the Philippine Women`s University (PWU). The reason for the transfer is still unclear to me, although rumors were rife that he and his group of UESFA "punkistas" got the ire of our Director, Florencio Concepcion, for their indulging in an overt manner in an activity that was part and parcel of the punk lifestyle. And that wasn`t their dressing the part and listening to punk music, if you know what I mean. 

Now, Jojo Garcia is a changed man. Don`t let the unruly hair fool you, because Jojo really takes his life and art seriously. He works in animation and paints during his free times. His output, true to the pop art ethos, depicts Converse sneakers, Coca Cola cans, and jeepneys, faintly reminiscent of Andy Warhol`s style. 

But while Warhol, or rather, Warhol`s numerous assistants, employed the silk screen technique in his artworks, Jojo did his by his own hand and by the old-fashioned method using oil paints and brushes. And he is quite generous with his oils, too, because he slathered them on in thick impasto. His fondness for distortion, swirling brush strokes, use of garish colors and employment of the repeating image device as composition format may turn off many painters and other art lovers still un-weaned from the influence of Amorsolo and the Mabini School of Art. 

But I am impressed. I am so impressed, that I'm now trying to resist the urge to do similar paintings. But, to no avail it seems, because Jojo`s paintings already showed their influence on me in my use of intense colors in my latest works and my adding to my brushwork repertoire the laying on of colors also in swirling impasto.

Jeepneys as painting subject were popular among Filipino artists. Vicente Manansala, Antonio Austria and Rock Drilon were the most prominent among the artists who`ve tried their hand in using jeepneys as recurrent motif in their works. Jojo Garcia`s close friend, Junjie Verzosa, also did a suite of jeepney paintings. It may be from him that Jojo got the idea to come up with his own version.

Nothing wrong with that.As I have said in a previous write-up on Isagani Fuentes, there`s nothing degrading in being influenced by the artists we admire. Painters, for centuries, have done deliberate copying of the styles of the paintings that so impressed them. I cited Picasso as an example. Now, I also add the great Michelangelo to the list, because he was said to be very much impressed and subsequently influenced by Luca Signorelli`s series of frescoes, The Last Judgment. 

And Raphael, too. He was forced to chucked his lean Peruginoesque figures when he saw by stealth Michelangelo`s work in progress on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Raphael`s mural, "The School of Athens", executed after his eye-opening encounter with Michelangelo`s robust humanity, revealed the older artist`s influence on him. 

Because of its sheer visual impact, I see no reason why Jojo`s art won`t make it as a favorite of interior designers and art collectors. Jojo`s paintings will surely look good hanged on the pristine walls of modern condominium units. 

Now, now; the purists among you may accuse me of espousing commercialism. But let`s be honest and stop the hypocrisy. If an artwork is for sale, and has a corresponding price tag, that artwork becomes a commodity, and is therefore commercial. 

The truly non-commercial artworks are the installations, and art of the conceptual kind shown in non-selling exhibitions. And also the paintings that are so gross and so badly painted that the artists won`t sell because no one will buy them anyway.

5. DEAN OF WATERCOLORISTS 

 

In contrast to the two guys I wrote about previously who are now my closest buddies, Jerry Dean was a very disciplined student. Unlike Jojo Garcia and Mon Villanueva, Jerry diligently attended his classes, passed his plates on time, and abhorred gallivanting and indulging in vices.

He is one classmate I have not lost track of over the years. We are compadres. He is godfather to my younger son, Kai. We were also partners once in a t-shirt printing business.

Jerry and I shared the same love for adventure outdoors. We snorkel, trek mountains, and camp out a lot. He had climbed Mt. Pulag which is very much higher than Mt. Makiling, the mountain I and my Tondo buddies climbed in 1981.

The activity we've done together often was snorkeling. We've snorkeled in Marinduque, Zambales, and Cebu. He joined us for a vacation one summer in Oslob, Cebu, in 1994. Not one day passed then when we didn't go to  sea. We borrowed a small banca every morning and paddled out to where the corals are, returning to the house only when it was time to eat our lunch.

Jerry worked for many years in animation, first as special effects, and later, as background artist. His stint in this field honed his skill in watercolor techniques. With the advent of the computer, he was compelled to learn Photoshop and other digital painting programs, skills that served him in good stead when he opened a business later on..

Jerry had also worked in Vietnam and Singapore as animation background artist, and in Kuwait as muralist. Although the latter job also paid well, he confessed that he'd rather not do murals again if the job includes doing ceiling paintings. He complained that long hours of looking up and staring at the ceiling gave him a bad neck.

His marriage opened for him another career--- that of baker and cake decorator. His wife, Franz, you see, owned a bakery, and she encouraged Jerry to enroll in a cake decoration course. Jerry did, and the knowledge he acquired he put into good use when he went to work in Singapore as cake decorator. He was back after almost a year's stay in Singapore and is again indulging his true passion which is watercolor painting.

Jerry likes his watercolor paintings wet---that is, he loves applying watercolor paints or inks on wet paper. The effect he's aiming for is the one where the paint explodes or spreads out upon contact with the wet surface.

Jerry's 2011 works, "Self-Contentment" and "Fusion of Archetypes", are very much pared down and very colorful---a far cry from his earlier works whose backgrounds are packed with realistic details and whose color scheme are muted somewhat by his use of somber earth colors.

That is all to the good, because his abstract treatment of part of the background of his recent works gives the paintings a more spontaneous and fluid quality, which are traits one always looks for in watercolors. Freshness was achieved too when he allows his fluid reds, blues, yellows, violets, and ochres to merge, melt, and explode into each other.

When his love affair with watercolor will end Jerry can't answer as of yet. He had implied that he hasn't exhausted all the possibilities of the medium. As things stand he is just into herons, swans, flowers, and boats. So, we can expect Jerry to devote several years more to watercolor if he intends to take on the challenge of depicting subject matter other than his beloved outdoors and its denizens.

Jerry and Franz now live in Bacoor City, Cavite.  They operate a printing shop there, which also doubles as Jerry's art studio and gallery. That is where Jerry does his watercolors now, which have become more refined and masterly with time.

6. A RETURN TO ARCS AND LINES

One need not take up Fine Arts in college if one wants to be a good painter. There are painters who are big names now in the Philippine art scene even though they weren't fine arts students before. There was the National Artist Hernando R. Ocampo, who was a writer by profession, but went on to make his mark as an abstractionist with a very distinct style. There was also the architect Onib Olmedo and the pilot Lino Severino. 

Even though Olmedo and Severino are not National Artists, still, I count them among the most illustrious names in Philippine art history. Why? Because both of them have inspired and influenced many painters, who emulate their style and choice of subject matter. Many painters, including Marcel Antonio, who's National Artist material himself, have openly admired Olmedo's works. I can also add Elmer Borlongan (another National Artist material in my book), and perhaps his whole Salingpusa confreres, among Onib's admirers. Looking at Onib's painting, we can easily see who Elmer's source of inspiration might be for the bald humanity he is fond of depicting in his paintings. 

Lino Severino, on the other hand, seems to be forgotten nowadays, because I haven't yet heard of any painter of vintage houses paying tribute to him as his primary influence. That is puzzling, because Severino was a big name in the nineteen-seventies. He was the one who popularized paintings of old houses, facades mostly, which he depicted in a manner that was almost abstract. I consider these paintings--- his Vanishing Scene Series---as still the best of this genre.

Ricarte Ico followed in their footsteps. Although his talent in art seems innate---his fascination with drawing began from his pre-school years---it wasn't Fine Arts that he took up in college. He majored in History at the CAP College Foundation, and also earned later on a Certificate in Teaching at the Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State Univerity. He also has several units in architecture from Saint Louis College La Union tucked under his belt. 

Ricarte was born and raised in San Marcelino, Zambales, but is now based in Bauang, La Union. Ricarte learned the basics of painting from artists friends, and honed his skill further through self-study and constant practice. His knowledge in architectural drafting led Ricarte to explore the possibilities of integrating fine art and architecture in his paintings. 

Ricarte had already won four first prizes and one second prize in on-the-spot competitions he joined. He had exhibited works in various venues in San Fernando City, La Union, and Metro Manila. I met Ricarte at facebook, and I've encountered him in person only once, at the Marikina Riverbanks, when we were both invited by Isagani Fuentes to join his group, Akwarelistas, in their plein-air painting session. A sociable fellow apparently, Ricarte, although residing in far-away La Union, readily confirmed his attendance, and was at the painting venue early. Ricarte is a member of several art groups, like the Artists Guild of La Union, the Pinoy na Pinoy Visual Artists, Inc.(PPVAI), and the Art Association of the Philippines (AAP)---which further attests to his outgoing ways. 

Ricarte started painting in 1995. He began as a realist, as all painters should. I have reiterated in my writings that an artist should first master the rudiments of realist drawing and painting before venturing out to try his hand in abstraction and other modernist styles. And that was exactly what Ricarte did. Among his early works, his painting of sunflowers is the one I like best. Although pointillist at first glance, this painting's brushwork is really distinct from the original pointillist technique invented by Georges Seurat, and popularized here by Ibarra dela Rosa. Seurat's method was to juxtapose dots of different colors which were blended optically by the viewers' eyes to create from afar the illusory intermediate colors. Ibarra utilized the same principle, but his brushwork deviated somewhat from Seurat. Instead of dots, he applied sausage-like curvilinear shapes to his canvases. 

Ricarte did things differently, however. He applied his dots of lighter hues more as finishing touches, to lighten areas in his paintings that need lightening. Whether true or not to the pointillist principle , Ricarte's paintings can be as charming as the paintings by the old masters of pointillism like Seurat, Pissarro, Signac, Sisley, and Ibarra. 

Ricarte is not only a sociable fellow; he is also apparently a restless one. He could have rested on his pointillist laurels and content himself in churning out pointillist canvases for the rest of his painting career, like what Ibarra did. But no---he chose to explore other styles, specifically cubism. His paintings in this genre are on the verge of becoming non-objective abstractions, especially the later ones of fishes , whose lines, both the straights and the curves , seem to be drawn using rulers and other mechanical drawing instruments.

Perhaps, this is the fusion of fine art and architecture in his paintings that Ricarte spoke about. I wouldn't be surprised if Ricarte veered further towards the non-objective extreme of Constructivism and Suprematism, because Ricarte after all was an architectural draftsman once. He would I'm sure relish drawing the lines, squares, and arcs that define the paintings of the practitioners of those schools. 

At any rate, this search for new forms on the part of Ricarte should be applauded. The results justify his experimentation. Because his cubist paintings of fishes, and even of the playful Angry Birds, will most likely win the nod of those critics, collectors, and painters, who consider the clinically-realistic academic paintings passe, trite , and uncreative.

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IN DEFENSE OF APPROPRIATION

IN DEFENSE OF APPROPRIATION

The Art of Levi Yu

By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol

In the same manner that Cubism and other modernist styles liberated painters from their compulsion to copy natural appearances, so did Post Modernism free the succeeding generation of painters from their obsession to be original. That's because in this Post Modernist era, appropriation, or the copying of the artworks of other painters is no longer looked askance at by everyone.

Post Modernism dates from when Pop Art - which was a reaction against  Abstract Expressionism's negation of recognizable image - arose. Pop Art and all the other styles that came after it were subsumed by art historians under the eclectic embrace of Post Modernism. But even before the arrival of Pop Art, appropriation was already resorted to by Marcel Duchamp who came out with his mustachioed image of Mona Lisa, and Salvador Dali who painted a facsimile of Vermeer's "The Lace Maker". A 1979 painting with a longish title by Art and Language  (Michael Baldwin and Mel Ramsden) could be mistaken for a drip and splatter painting by the arch-action painter himself, Jackson Pollock. There is also Mike Bidlo, who now rocks, though notoriously so, the global art scene by churning out imitations and paintings in the style of Picasso, Fernand Leger, and Matisse, among other masters of the past. Our very own Mabini painters have been at it, too, copying Fernando Amorsolo's rustic scenes for years without using fancy terms like appropriation to describe their artistic practice.

LEVI YU however is not a mere copyists. Yu does appropriations. His paintings were definitely inspired by and near-copies of the works of recognized Filipino painting masters, like Malang, Luz, and Bencab. But there is something novel in his approach, because Yu often mingled in a single work altered fragments of paintings by the masters I mentioned. It is as if his paintings are interactions or collaborative works by them. 

Prime example of those is Yu's painting of a Malang woman with little eyes and little mouth and angled black outline nose, swathed in voluminous cloths that were the trademark garb of Bencab's Sabel. Subtle humor radiates from this painting as Yu playfully "teletransported" that woman to the present and equipped her with a gadget to take selfies with.

Yu's interpretations of Arturo Luz's linear hill paintings are very similar to the originals. What prevented them from being sheer imitations is Yu's insertion in the valleys and foothills clusters of foreign-looking houses, and even a walled city. Ubiquitous in all his works though is the circle or orb which serves as some sort of signature that would identify these works as his.

Yu was born in Davao City on August 26, 1980, to Emma and painter William Yu. He grew up in Manila. He said that he started doing art when he was small, and later on, when he grew older, became his dad's assistant. However, it wasn't Fine Arts that Yu took up and finished in college - at San Beda-Alabang, where he graduated with honors - but Management major in Entrepreneurship. Before going into painting full time, Yu was a Property Consultant for Britanny Corporation.

Yu seems to be treading the same career path being trodden on now by that prolific "appropriationist" Mike Bidlo. Nothing wrong with that as long as Yu exhibits the manual dexterity and aplomb necessary in the execution of his works. Which he does, and which shouldn't surprise us, because Levi Yu after all is the son of the noted Cubist William Yu. Curiously though, Yu appears to avoid (for the meantime at least) painting in the Cubist manner like his dad. Which again shouldn't surprise us, because a precedent was set decades before by Malang's sons Steve and Soler, who opted not to follow their father's Cubist footsteps.

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