ARNALDO BERNABE MIRASOL : Painter and Illustrator

Photo taken in 2006 of the artist in his studio

ARNALDO BERNABE MIRASOL, popularly known as Arnel Mirasol in the Philippine art circle, was born and raised in Tondo, Manila, Philippines. He took up Fine Arts, major in painting at the University of Santo Tomas and the University of the East. Mirasol began working as a professional artist in 1981, when he was hired as editorial cartoonist for the newspaper People's Journal Tonight. In 1987, he applied and was hired for the same job in Joe Burgos' We Forum Publications. In between his cartooning stints, Mirasol worked as gallery assistant at the Galeria de las Islas, and was an educational book illustrator from 1988 to 2000.

In 1996, Mirasol showed his portfolio to Reni Roxas and Marc Singer, publishers of Tahanan Books for Young Readers. Being especially impressed by the cover art he did for Phoenix Publishing House, Reni and Marc commissioned Mirasol to do the illustrations for their collaborative book First Around the Globe: The Story of Enrique". Mirasol went on to illustrate four more books for Tahanan: Tamales Day, The Brothers Wu and the Good-Luck Eel, Once Upon a Time, and Long Ago and Far Away" (below right).

Mirasol's other books are The Origin of the Frog, Anina ng mga Alon (Anina of the Waves), and Mga Modernong Alamat (Modern Legends) Volume 4.Two of his books were prize-winners abroad. The Origin of the Frog won a runner-up award in the 12th Noma Concours for Picture Book Illustration in Tokyo, in 2000; while the excellence of his illustrations for The Brothers Wu and the Good-luck Eel landed him in the Honour List of the Basel-based International Board on Books for Young people. (below left).

Mirasol has had three solo art exhibitions, so far - once at the Hiraya Gallery and twice at the Crucible (below right). He had also participated in several group exhibitions. His paintings in the eighties, although belonging to the social-realist school, were tempered somewhat with surrealist color and humor. One of his paintings from that period, the Hungry Child Dissected, won in 1984, one of the three Best Entry awards in the First Metrobank Annual painting Competition.

2008 was a landmark year for Mirasol. It was during that time that he finally weaned himself away from the sharp-focus realist style of his previous paintings. While his earlier works were rendered with a meticulous attention to details, his recent illustrations and paintings (below) - with their simplification, distortion, and loud coloration - have a decidedly modern and pop art feel to them. Mirasol still lives in Tondo, with wife Carina, and sons Brando de Niro and Karel Andrei. 

Miss Butterfly, 2010, oil on canvas, 24 X 33 inches, Segundo Matias Jr. collection

Bloody Mary, 2009, oil on canvas, 8 X 10 inches, Sari Ortiga collection

FIRST AROUND THE GLOBE: THE STORY OF ENRIQUE

By Arnel Mirasol

Although I began doing the illustrations for the book The Origin of the Frog earlier, it was First Around the Globe which got published first, in 1997. This book was a collaborative work by authors Reni Roxas and Marc Singer, who were also the publishers of Tahanan Books for Young Readers. Reni and Marc were very generous to me. They paid me thirty-five thousand pesos for the illustrations which took me only a month to complete. That was a princely amount then, because publishers at the time will only pay twenty-five thousand pesos at the most to the illustrator. (Rex Printing only paid me fifteen-thousand pesos for The Origin of the Frog.)

The book is about Enrique el Negro.Enrique was the slave bought by Magellan in Malacca, where Magellan served as soldier. When Magellan sailed to the Philippines, he brought Enrique with him to serve as his interpreter in the islands he planned to go to. When they landed in Homonhon, an Island off Samar, Magellan realized that Enrique couldn't speak the language of the place which is Waray-Waray. It was only when they sailed to Limasawa Island in Southern Leyte and Cebu, that Enrique became useful as interpreter, because Enrique understood and spoke the language of the inhabitants there which is Sugbuanon (Cebuano). This book proposes the theory that because Enrique can speak Cebuano, he was definitely a Cebuano, and that he - not Magellan, nor Juan Sebastian Elcano - was the first circumnavigator of the world. This book tells of how Enrique was captured in Cebu by pirates from Mindanao, sold at the Malacca slave market, and brought by Magellan to Spain -  from where they sailed south-westward to the tip of South America, through the South Pacific Ocean, to Guam, Homonhon, Limasawa, Cebu, and Mactan - and then Cebu again, where he presumably stayed after the death of his master.

An amusing incident involving the book was related to me by my father Edmundo. One time in the late 1990s, he was aboard a Superferry  bound for Cebu. A close relative, Nick Gomocio, was with him. While sailing, they heard from the intercom a voice announcing an "on board sale" of a book. The book was First Around the Globe. When my father heard my name mentioned as the illustrator, he and Nick rushed to the book sale site, and promptly introduced himself to Reni Roxas as the father of the illustrator. Reni quickly quipped in reply: "Hindi ho maikakaila, Magkamukha ho kayo.  (It can't be denied. You resemble each other.)"

Cover art, 1997, acrylic on paper, Marc Singer collection

DKNY EXPRESS

By Arnel Mirasol

DKNY Express, 2012, oil on canvas, 24 X 18 inches

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 beloved by bargain-hunters. I first heard of Divisoria Kanto ng Ylaya from Arn Cruz when he was driving me and another classmate home to Tondo. When I said that our house is just walking-distance from Ilaya Street, he said something to this effect, "Ah, so you live in DKNY".

My first impulse when doing this painting was to put the words "Viva Santo Nino" on the headboard of the jeepney, and title this piece Fiesta Serenade. But then Arn's DKNY joke came to mind. I adjudged then and there 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 (sample below left) to the package. What Ray said after reading my message surprised me - very pleasantly. He said that I shouldn't sell my paintings cheap, and offered 30 thousand pesos for the whole lot. Now, DKNY Express is a relatively small work, and the two abstracts are definitely small and very easy to do. (I completed them in a matter of minutes.) I've sold a painting (see bottom) slightly bigger than DKNY Express for 60 thousand pesos, but this was during a solo show, where prices are naturally higher because of the markup set by the gallery and other considerations. It therefore pleases me no end that a long-time art collector who bought from me directly would pay a relatively high price for DKNY Express..

Red Nude, 2012, acrylic on paper, 12 X 18 inches

But Ray, it seems, belong to that rare breed of art collectors, true art collectors, who buys art not for speculation or investment, but  (to borrow Leonidas Benesa's words) "for their own personal delectation." He is not a bargain-hunter when it comes to art buying, Which just goes to show how high artists are on Ray's list of worthy individuals. Thank you very much, Ray.

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

THE WILD SWANS

By Arnel Mirasol

Of all the illustrations I did, The Wild Swans is the one most borrowed by bloggers and website owners. 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 to their sites. When I searched the internet, I discovered that when you googled Arnaldo Mirasol, around fourteen websites will appear with the Wild Swans as adornment. Here is the list of those websites: Sacred Familiar, Watercolordreams, indigodreams, sosuperawesome, Dangerous Prayer, illustratosphere, Altared Spaces, Illustrated imaginarium, Enlighten me, In The Land Of Lux, The Suffolks, Pinterest, traveling ghost, and papertigers. Of these. only the last two made it a point to obtain my permission.

(Shown below are cropped screenshot samples of those websites.)

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 (below), the cover art for the book Once Upon a Time, 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 I consider surrealism as the most cerebral of all art movements or styles.

The Little Mermaid's "own website"