ART WITHOUT ANGST

By Arnel Mirasol

Masquerade, 2015, acrylic on canvas, 36 X 48 inches

The scene where worried parents discourage a child from taking up fine arts in college was played out many times before. The reason given almost always is the perception that an art career does not pay. Which is true in many cases. But I also know of several painters here who proved the fallacy of that perception. These painters are on a roll because their paintings are bestsellers.

EMAN SANTOS is one of them. Santos had traveled extensively in Europe, exhibiting his works in major cities there, and earning critical acclaim and financial rewards in the process. He had exhibited his works at the Museum of Young Art (MOYA) in Vienna, and at the Chelsea Gallery in London. Santos was also a participant in the International Drawing Connection art exhibit in Sienna, Italy, and in exhibitions in Essen and Berlin in Germany, Oberhausen in Belgium, and Luxembourg City in Luxembourg. He had also exhibited in Asia, in Singapore specifically, and of course, in the Philippines, where he had mounted several solo shows, and participated in more than a dozen group art exhibitions.

Santos had won a slew of awards in painting competitions both here and abroad. He was the Second Prize winner in the GSIS 10th National Annual Art Competition in 2014, Representational Category-Mixed Media, and Honorable Mention in the same contest in the Non-Representational Category. Especially remarkable was his winning three prizes in the 65th Art Association of the Philippines Annual Art Competition in 2012, where he garnered the Grand prize in Painting, and Honorable Mention awards in the Sculpture and Drawing Category. His painting Biyaya (below) won First Place in an on-line art competition in India, the Together Arts 2011 International Art Contest: Colours , where he bested contestants from other countries including the one from Russia, who won second place. Those were just a few of Santos' triumphs. He had won others, which I couldn't mention here because of their sheer number.

Biyaya, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 32 X 32 inches

We can see therefore that Santos had proved unfounded his parents' fear of a possibly penurious art career for him. His parents wanted him to take up either architecture or civil engineering - courses that are tops in terms of practicality and high-earning potential. Santos had initially enrolled in Architecture at the Far Eastern University, but quit after a year. He next took up Interior Design at the Philippine School of Interior Design.

But it isn't in those disciplines that Santos earns raves and a substantial livelihood nowadays. Santos is famous as a painter. His paintings which are purged of elements that would induce anxiety in viewers, are bestsellers. Santos' art is all joy. The themes he tackles can't fail to warm hearts. His subject matters - mother and child, family picnics, frisky pets, etc. - are set most of the time in rustic surroundings fringed with bamboos. This compositional device, a favorite of the lakeshore painters of Angono and nearby towns, was improved on and made a bit more contemporary by Santos when he peopled his scenes with characters with distorted but still charming visages. Santos' paintings fall within the ambit of Rustic Pop because of his depiction of cartoony characters in rural milieus. Especially charming and cute is the stuff toy-like white dog that appeared in many of his paintings. That dog is not an imaginary dog, Santos explained - he is a representation of his pet, Travis.

But Santos' art had evolved. Santos gradually introduced into his rustic genres (right) near-abstract elements that might seem incongruous with the kind of paintings he does. Gone are the meticulously-limned leaves from his trees, and in their stead he painted forms that look like currency symbols to me. I asked Santos if I'm correct in interpreting them as money signs. He answered that I am.

Santos didn't stopped halfway in his formal explorations. He went all out, and turned out paintings that are definitely abstractions (above). Although nearly non-objective abstractions in look, Santos emphasized that he didn't intend his recent output to be that. They are prosperity or money trees he said. Santos showed these paintings in his solo exhibit of Feng Shui art in 2012. This series is apparently a best-seller too, because money trees will form part of the collection he'll show in his forthcoming exhibit, Synthesis, at the Artologist Gallery - which, by the way, will also feature portraits of women occupying spaces festooned with money signs and other abstract motifs (see sample at the top), and animals like a kingfisher, an arowana, and his new pet dog, the dachshund Hubby.

When I asked Santos why he chose Synthesis as title of his exhibit, he explained that the pieces in this show are an amalgam of everything he did in his art in the past, the summation of his journey and exploration into the various artistic styles - from realism, to abstract, to mixed-media works, and tellingly, to the blending of those to create a new singular style. "Synthesis dahil pinagsalu-salo ko mga ideas para makabuo ako ng ibang reaksyon sa mga obra ko..." are Santos' exact words.

Santos is a tireless innovator. For his 2015 collection, Santos introduced new elements in his money tree paintings, which are mixed-media works (below). He began integrating PVC strips and what look like washers in his primarily acrylic on canvas pieces.

Seeking to blur the line dividing fine arts and craft, Santos also "manufactured" a line of tree lamp-shades (sample at left) that uses PVC, fiber resin, and granite powder as material. The lamps which are definitely utilitarian are also definitely sculptural - true works of art like any other.

Eman Santos is a blessed man. Not only had he exhibited extensively abroad, he was also featured many times on television, and his art reviewed in both local and foreign publications. He was also included in two coffee-table books: Mother and Child: Great Themes in Philippine Art by Manuel Duldulao, and Filipino Legacies of Art by Miguel Macrohon. Santos excels not only in the visual arts but also in music. He is gifted with a great singing voice that earned him spots in the grand finals of several amateur singing contests. But the most significant blessing of all is his having a wife, Ysa Gernale, who is as lovely as she is artistically talented and two equally lovely children (below).

Eman Santos and family in front of his prize-winning piece in the 2014 GSIS Painting Competition