BYE-BYE HUNGRY CHILD DISSECTED

By Arnel Mirasol

Hungry Child Dissected, 1983, mixed-media, 2 X 4 feet. Elvira Gonzaga collection

Although Hungry Child Dissected is not my best work (as some friends say), it never fails to stir up pleasant memories every time I look at it. For good reason - that's because this painting marked my first success as a serious painter. It was one of the three Best Entry winners in the First Metrobank Annual Painting Competition in 1984. The other two Best Entry winners were the paintings August 6 by Roberto Feleo, and Mga Batang Pag-asa by Joel Marayag Ferrer. The competition format then did away with the usual First, Second, and Third Prizes. All of us three Best Entry winners received ten thousand pesos and a medal each. That amount may look measly compare to the more than two-hundred thousand pesos being awarded these days to the First prize winners of each Metrobank competition: but to the aspiring young painters of the nineteen-eighties, that was a lot of money. By the way, the ten thousand pesos prize money we received were not purchase prize; the painters retained ownership of their prize-winning works.

The competition format also called for another round of competition among us three Best Entry winners to determine the recipient of the Grand Prize -  an educational scholarship worth twenty-thousand pesos. We three were asked to submit another five paintings each for judging. There was a tie - Feleo and I both got the judges nod. The twenty-thousand pesos educational scholarship was split between us. But I never availed of it because I've decided that I had enough of schooling already.

Lupa, 1983, oil on canvas, 2 X 4 feet, Nicanor Tiongson collection

I had difficulty choosing which of the two paintings I considered as my best at that time to enter in the competition. Aside from Hungry Child Dissected, I also considered Lupa (right) as my entry. Close friends I consulted chose Lupa (Land), but I decided on Hungry Child because I saw it as more innovative. Lupa is rather conservative - the technique I used there hewed closely to the classical realist tradition. Hungry Child Dissected was part of a series of paintings I did where I began experimenting with new composition formats, painting techniques, and materials (below left). There were lots of straight lines in those paintings, and materials like ink, silver tempera, acrylic, and modeling paste were used freely. Magazine cut-outs and photographs were also incorporated into the paintings as collages. The most telling innovation, however, was my use of real fish-bones as collage material. After the triumph of Hungry Child Dissected, other painters were inspired to also used that collage material in their paintings, including another Metrobank Best Entry winner for 1985 - Lito Lopez  - who was a fellow student from the University of the East (UE),

Gift of War

Nueva Gomorrah

My UE Fine Arts friends: standing from left; Jerry Dean, Oca Magos, and Veng Gonzaga ; sitting from left; myself, Jojo Garcia, Dulce Ramos-Falsis, and Bert Falsis.

You'll ask why I'm bidding goodbye to Hungry Child Dissected. That's because, after keeping it in my possession for thirty years, I've finally decided to let it go. I offered it to another UE Fine Arts schoolmate, Elvira Gonzaga (above, at extreme right, second row), who didn't hesitate to buy it. This was her third purchase from me - she had already bought two of my paintings - Supremacy of Eve and Music is a Magic Carpet. Elvira - or Veng- is among my several UE friends who made good in life. I can even rank her near, or even at the top, of my list of successful Fine Art friends, because painters like me hold art collectors in high-esteem. They decide the fate of artists, and get to choose which artist will flourish and which artist will starve. Since we owe them our living, art collectors are like gods to us. I thank God therefore for art collectors.