MAGIC AND MACHISMO

(Exhibition notes for my 2007 solo art exhibit of paintings and illustrations at the Crucible Gallery)

By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol

My family and I live on top of what once was sea. Our house in Tondo sits on land reclaimed from Manila Bay, about a hundred meters away from the original edge of the beach. Not being originally land, our place was swampy, with snatches of murky pools of water trapped here and there, usually under each dwelling. Our neighborhood is quintessential "Erapland," where the measure of manhood is the size of one's brood. Also, vices reign supreme here. The menfolk, in faithful imitation of their flawed idol, flaunt their addictions, while the women play coy and indulge theirs a little furtively.

One would think that an artist requires a calm milieu to create art. Many artist do. But not me. My drawing table, the one I've used for eighteen years, faces a window. It really isn't a table, but just a piece of battered half-inch thick plywood hinged at the edge of the window sill. Our neighbor to the left of the window operated a bookie, an illegal racehorse betting station. Another neighbor maintained two video-game machines, the sort where players insert one peso coins to start a game. These machines were patronized mostly by kids, unruly kids, who punctuate their utterances with expletives.

So, you can just imagine the combined aural assault mounted day in and day out by these kids and the bums who bet on the horses. Thus, I myself am amazed, if I may brag a little, by the painstaking quality of my output for the past four years. Despite the aggravations inflicted on me while I work, I still managed to slog along and turn out works so detailed that many who'll see them may conclude that they could only be the handiwork of a painter painting unharassed in an air-conditioned and commodious studio

.The two sets of artworks on view here, being of two distinct themes, were supposed to be shown in two separate non-simultaneous exhibitions. But Crucible president, Sari Ortiga, dissuaded me and instead suggested that they be shown in one exhibit. He reasoned that what will be displayed won't be my treatment of any particular theme but my supposed expertise in my chosen technique- sharp focus realism. So, the titles for the two separate art exhibits, Old-fashioned Fairy Tale Art 2 (for the illustrations for the book Long Ago and Far Away, above) and Facets of Manhood (for the paintings on machismo) were folded into the eponymous, yes, but bland and generic title, ARNEL MIRASOL: ptgs & illus. The theme of the fairytale illustrations (below) need no elaboration, I think; so, I'll just expound on the theme of the paintings and the two cover art.

Rumpelstiltskin, 2003, acrylic on paper, 11.2 X 14 inches, Frances Ong collection

Snow White and Rose Red, 2003, acrylic on paper, 11.2 X 14 inches, Marixi Rufino-Prieto collection

The Goose Girl, 2003, acrylic on paper, 11.2 X 14 inches, Reni Roxas collection

Rapunzel, 2003, acrylic on paper, Reni Roxas collection

I have never handled a gamecock in my life, nor ever placed a bet on a cockfight. It may therefore come as a surprise to many why I chose to do a series of paintings on cockfighting. Tahanan Books publisher Reni Roxas inadvertently prompted me to do so. I once included a rooster in an illustration I did for them and she remarked that I am good at drawing roosters. So, I thought, why not? Why not exploit that skill and come up with a series of paintings depicting roosters. I therefore came up with three smallish paintings of cockers (below) which I admit were influenced somewhat by Picasso's images of massive neo-classical figures.

Dawn Duel, 2002, acrylic on paper, 12.5 X 12.5 inches, Reni Roxas collection

Warrior Bird, 2002, acrylic on paper, 12.5 X 12.5 inches, Robinzon Fernandez collection collection

Happy Man / Corrupt Bureaucrat Dissected  2, 2002, acrylic on paper, 12.5 X 12.5 inches

Although I'm pleased with the finished works- my tentative sally into modernism - I realized that I really cannot sustain the momentum and go on turning out paintings belonging to what I called my Anak ng Tupada (Son of the Cockfight) Series. I changed tack. I widened the scope of my theme which I now called Facets of Manhood, or my machismo series. I felt free then to start another suite, this time about divers, a subject which is more after my own heart for I do indulge in watersports.

Snorkeler's Blues, 2006, oil on canvas, 24 X 13 inches, private collection

Lord of the Reef, 2007, acrylic on paper, 30 X 22 inches

The Sea Gypsy, 2002, acrylic on paper, Bert and Dulce Falsis collection

Taking further advantage of the theme's widened scope, I decided to also include The Imperialist Manifesto (below right), which was used as cover art for a textbook on world history. The inclusion of this work may be perplexing and its link with my supposed theme may seem tenuous. But keener analysis allowed me to conclude that, indeed, imperialism is the ultimate manifestation of machismo. Let me emphasize however that this work is not another leftist ranting in pictorial form. I used the term imperialist in its generic sense, that is to describe all the empire builders in history. Thus, the nations alluded to ought to be flattered because this illustration merely advances the thesis that the imperialists were the founders of civilizations.

The  Imperialist Manifesto. 1999, Reni Roxas collection

I am a big fan of Ernest Hemingway, whose lifework as chronicler of the doings of the machos of the world earned him world renown. What he set out to chronicle in his writings I aim to depict in my paintings. But in matters of style, I daresay that we are antipodal. If his language is succinct, mine is not. You see, I have this strange compulsion to render forms in painstaking details, which I suspect is not really a smart way of doing things if I want to get rich quick. This preoccupation with male vanity may invite questions on whether I intend to stick to this theme for the remaining course of my painting career. Of course not. This early, I've already started a series of paintings on women (below). My plan at this stage is to exhaust what is there to exhaust on machismo as a painting subject and hope that, along the way, I'll be able to get this Hemingwayesque fixation out of my system..

February 17, 2007

Supremacy of Eve, 2006, acrylic on paper, 22 X 30 inches, Elvira Gonzaga collection

Seraglio Fantasy, 2005, oil on canvas, 24 X 24 inches, private collection

ILLUSTRATION ART AS FINE ART by Constantino Tejero

ARNEL MIRASOL is a bit disappointed that local art writers seem to ignore his exhibits of illustrations. The more reason for disappointment that the sentiment comes from someone whom some consider the Philippines' "own Maxfield Parrish." But his is not the only case, as most often such shows are not taken by art critics as seriously as they would an exhibit of abstraction, installations, assemblages or some such esoterica.

Which is rather puzzling, considering the painstaking effort, stylistic skill and deep thought that can also go into illustration art. Consider Mirasol's third solo exhibit, "ptgs & illus," 21 pieces in acrylic on paper and oil on canvas, recently in Crucible Gallery at the Artwalk, L/4, Bldg.A, SM Megamall, Mandaluyong City. The show comprises eight paintings on the theme of machismo, 2 cover art, and 11 illustrations for the book Long Ago and Far Away (right), a retelling of 10 Brothers Grimm fairy tales by Fran Ng and Rene Villanueva. All are rendered in Mirasol's trademark sharp-focus realist style, which he learned from the small brush technique of Parrish and Wyeth.

Seraglio Fantasy, oil on canvas, 24 X 24inches, 2005, private collection

Snorkeler's Blues, oil on canvas, 24 X 13 inches, 2006, private collection

Although he first thrived on monochrome, in pen and ink drawing as political cartoonist and in black-and-white line drawing as a textbook illustrator, Mirasol also stands out as a colorist. He can blend complementary colors so that the brilliance of each hue doesn't clash with the others, but rather harmonizes, as in the machismo paintings Seraglio Fantasy and Snorkeler's Blues. But even more that his delicate colorism, the viewer appreciates his fine rendering of form. His illustrative skill goes beyond mere narrative.

Supremacy of Eve, acrylic on paper, 30 X 22 inches, 2006, Elvira Gonzaga collection

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.

Rapunzel, acrylic on paper, 2003, Reni Roxas collection

Or look at the paisley print of Rapunzel's gown, and the meticulous braiding of her kilometric hair; the sheen and the folds of the witch's robe; the rough texture of the yellow ochre wall; the delicate crystal decanter in the niche; even the linear perspective of the chessboard floor that's executed with unnerving exactitude. Mirasol took up Fine Arts for two years at University of Santo Tomas, shifted to Architecture, then Engineering, and later resumed his art studies in University of the East. For a time he work as an editorial cartoonist for a newspaper. Inspired by a book on Dali, he decided to paint full-time, went through a Social Realist phase, and won the top prize in the First Metrobank Annual Painting Competition in 1984,

His illustrations for The Origin of the Frog was a runner-up in the 2000 Unesco-Noma Concours for Picture-Book Illustrations. With The Brothers Wu and the Good-Luck Eel he was registered on the 2002 Honour List of the International Board on Books for Young People. Such awards, however, hardly go into his head. Upon seeing the illustrations of Gennady Spirin, Wayne Anderson and James Christensen, he says he had been deeply humbled. "The truth that the quality of my works are still way below the world's standard became evident to me," he recalls. Like most graphic illustrators, Mirasol is one of our virtually unsung artists. This show, however, handily proves that illustration can be as fine an art as any.

(June 25, 2007, Philippine Daily Inquirer)

Arnel Mirasol in his studio