Ponciano Zapanta took up Architecture at the National University. His not being able to finish the course led him into a career in the graphic arts and later on into serious painting. Zapanta's first job (or business I should say) was as silkscreen printer - which paid well according to him. He related that he was able to buy land from the earnings of his silkscreen business. Zapanta later on worked as graphic artist in Jeddah and China. It was in Jeddah where Zapanta rediscovered his love for painting when he joined and garnered third place in the First Saudia Open Competition for Heritage and Culture in 1992. He was a finalist in the second edition of the contest in 1994. In 2015, he joined the GSIS painting competition, where he was again a finalist. But it seems that Zapanta's talent isn't limited to the visual arts - he was also a poet who once won a gold medal from the Knights of Rizal for his poetry.
A native of Taytay, Rizal, Zapanta is very active in the art scene there. He is a long time member of the Group Artists of Taytay (GAT) - serving as its president in 1996, and director from 1997 to the present. He was also a member of the Pinta Pilipino Artists Group and subsequently of the Kulay Pinoy in Jeddah. His influences are varied. He likes the Art Nouveau painter and decorative artist Alphonse Mucha, the classical realist Godofredo Zapanta, and the cubist Vicente Manansala - three artists who espoused three very different art styles. Although Godofredo Zapanta, a cousin, was his mentor once, it was to Manansala's transparent cubism style that he eventually gravitated.
His two paintings (below) for the Krusada sa Kalikasan exhibit show what he'd learned and absorbed from Manansala. But with a dissimilarity though. While Manansala segmented his figures into transparent planes of contrasting gradations, Zapanta's prisms were juxtaposed all over the picture plane of his waterscapes. Prism is the key word here, because light when allowed to pass through a prism refracts into rays of different colors - the very colors of the rainbow which Zapanta utilized liberally, and harmoniously I must add, in his works.
Zapanta's wife Janita (Janet) San Juan is a public school teacher. They have two sons, twins, who aside from being both computer-literate are also into painting. Zapanta still lives in Taytay with his family, where he spends most of his time painting.
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| Fishermen's Border Line, oil on canvas, 24 X 24 inches |
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| Tatsulok: Kapitalista ang nasa Tuktok, Mangingisda ang nasa sulok, oil on canvas, 24 X 24 inches |
awesome
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