ARTLETA

By Arnel Mirasol

Artleta, as you may have easily deduced, is a combination of the words Artist and Athlete (Atleta in Filipino). I coined that word to, ahem, describe myself - because aside from painting and literature, I also love sports. But artleta will better describe Francisco "Isko" de la Cruz, because he'd done feats of physical prowess which I've never done and can never hope to do. Look at what he is wearing- that's one of the many uniforms he'd collected from joining marathons. But before taking up running, Isko was first a cyclist. He is my cycling and swimming buddy. But unlike me, he's not merely a recreational cyclist. He's hardcore - he belongs to a group of cyclists (below) who have biked from Monumento to Sorsogon several times already, which distance took them four days to traverse. Their group have already gone biking to Bagac, Bataan; Jalajala, Rizal; Lucban, Quezon; and Manaoag, Pangasinan. They plan to do Monumento to Baguio next.

Isko is from Hagonoy, Bulacan. Although he is ten years younger than me, he was my classmate in Rizal Course at the University of the East, Caloocan. Don't ask me why we became classmates despite our age gap: it is a long story. Anyway, after leaving college, I again encountered Isko in a cocktail hosted by the Metrobank Foundation during their painting competition's awarding ceremony in 2000. We haven't lost contact ever since. Isko is also into t-shirt printing- a business that must be thriving because of its enormous demand on his time. He's been at it for more than a decade now, so I must say that Isko is already an expert in silkscreen techniques or serigraphy.

That's the reason why when the idea of reviving our old UESFA art group, the SETA Movement, and holding a group art exhibit came up, Isko, who does abstracts before, leaned more towards  using

serigraphic techniques in creating his artworks. This is not a novel technique. Although it was Andy Warhol who popularized its usage in the creation of fine paintings, It was Robert Rauschenberg, if I remember correctly, who first utilized the technique in his art making. Here in the Philippines, one guy who'd been making waves in both the local and international art scene also uses serigraphy in creating his abstract pieces. He is Max Balatbat- winner not only of first prizes in three major painting competitions here but also of the silver medal in the 2009 Florence Biennale. Although Isko hopes to also make his mark in the art scene here by using serigraphy, his intent is not do full abstractions in emulation of Max Balatbat. He is inclined more to turn out artworks celebrating the pop art ethos, which is the elevation of the mundane, the popular, the ubiquitous, the current, the high-tech, and the kitschy to high art status.

Isko dela Cruz  and  Mon Villanueva during the Renascence show

The artwork he showed at Seta Pilipinas' Renascence exhibit at the Sigwada Art Gallery is titled Literati (at right). It shows an intellectual - a reconfiguration of Rodin's The Thinker sculpture - reading what looks like an encyclopedia, while holding an umbrella to ward off heavy rain represented by the literal depiction of the idiom "raining cats and dogs". True to Isko's pop art intent, this painting contains elements common to many true-blue pop art works like cartoonish animal characters, loud colors, and tongue-in-cheek narration.