By Arnel Mirasol
John Wesley Bautista was a product of the University of the East School of Music and Fine Arts, from which he graduated in 1980. He majored in painting. Right after college, he went into painting full-time, inspired perhaps by his brother, the late great painter Glenn Bautista, who's already gaining renown in the early eighties. It was elder brother Glenn, who taught John the rudiments of painting and guided him during the early years of his painting career. But John veered from the theme and style that Glenn was famous for. Although both "luminist" in their rendering techniques, Glenn's paintings almost always have surrealist or fantastic-realist overtones, while John's leaned more towards abstraction. John has had four solo shows so far, and had joined several group art exhibits.
I used the term luminist here in its very narrow sense - that is in its hiding of brushstrokes. Luminism is an American landscape painting style of the 1850s to the 1870s that put emphasis on the effects of light in landscapes. A common characteristic of luminist landscapes were their shiny reflective surfaces caused by the deliberate concealment of brushstrokes - which is to say that the paints were applied thin.The absence of visible brushstrokes in John's work led many who saw them to suspect that he used an airbrush to apply paint - which he categorically denied of course. I can invent a term for John's work - Luminist Abstraction - but more exact, I think, is to place his art, particularly the one below, within the bounds of the Pattern and Decoration (P&D) movement, because of its effort to mimic wallpaper, fabrics, and quilt patterns.
John's wife, Tess Nidea, is skilled in the culinary arts. They met at BF Homes where they both lived at the time. When she suggested that they open a bakeshop and later on a catering business, John left painting for a while to help her with the operation of the business. Their union was blessed with two boys, Wes and John Michael, who are both married with one child each. Both boys were artistically inclined. They are so into art during their grade school years, but with the advent of the computer age, they shifted their focus to mastering computer technology instead. Today, John paints full time.
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John Wesley Bautista was a product of the University of the East School of Music and Fine Arts, from which he graduated in 1980. He majored in painting. Right after college, he went into painting full-time, inspired perhaps by his brother, the late great painter Glenn Bautista, who's already gaining renown in the early eighties. It was elder brother Glenn, who taught John the rudiments of painting and guided him during the early years of his painting career. But John veered from the theme and style that Glenn was famous for. Although both "luminist" in their rendering techniques, Glenn's paintings almost always have surrealist or fantastic-realist overtones, while John's leaned more towards abstraction. John has had four solo shows so far, and had joined several group art exhibits.
I used the term luminist here in its very narrow sense - that is in its hiding of brushstrokes. Luminism is an American landscape painting style of the 1850s to the 1870s that put emphasis on the effects of light in landscapes. A common characteristic of luminist landscapes were their shiny reflective surfaces caused by the deliberate concealment of brushstrokes - which is to say that the paints were applied thin.The absence of visible brushstrokes in John's work led many who saw them to suspect that he used an airbrush to apply paint - which he categorically denied of course. I can invent a term for John's work - Luminist Abstraction - but more exact, I think, is to place his art, particularly the one below, within the bounds of the Pattern and Decoration (P&D) movement, because of its effort to mimic wallpaper, fabrics, and quilt patterns.
John's wife, Tess Nidea, is skilled in the culinary arts. They met at BF Homes where they both lived at the time. When she suggested that they open a bakeshop and later on a catering business, John left painting for a while to help her with the operation of the business. Their union was blessed with two boys, Wes and John Michael, who are both married with one child each. Both boys were artistically inclined. They are so into art during their grade school years, but with the advent of the computer age, they shifted their focus to mastering computer technology instead. Today, John paints full time.
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| Where Have All the Green Leaves Gone?, oil on canvas, 50 X 50 inches |
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