DKNY EXPRESS

By Arnel Mirasol

DKNY Express, 2012, oil on canvas, 24 X 18 inches

This painting is closely connected with two of my UST High School classmates - Arn Cruz and Ray Espinosa. The DKNY of the title doesn't mean Donna Karan New York. It is the tongue-in-cheek abbreviation, or initialism, for Divisoria Kanto ng Ylaya (Divisoria corner Ylaya) which are places in Manila beloved by bargain-hunters. I first heard of Divisoria Kanto ng Ylaya from Arn Cruz when he was driving me and another classmate home to Tondo. When I said that our house is just walking-distance from Ilaya Street, he said something to this effect, "Ah, so you live in DKNY".

My first impulse when doing this painting was to put the words "Viva Santo Nino" on the headboard of the jeepney, and title this piece Fiesta Serenade. But then Arn's DKNY joke came to mind. I adjudged then and there that DKNY Express is the better title because of its humor and wit.. Thanks Arn for giving me the idea for the title.

Ray Espinosa. on the other hand, bought this painting. There was a time during the latter months of 2013 when I really need cash fast. And to sell fast, I offered this painting at a very low price to Ray. I even included as sweeteners two of my small abstracts on paper (sample below left) to the package. What Ray said after reading my message surprised me - very pleasantly. He said that I shouldn't sell my paintings cheap, and offered 30 thousand pesos for the whole lot. Now, DKNY Express is a relatively small work, and the two abstracts are definitely small and very easy to do. (I completed them in a matter of minutes.) I've sold a painting (see bottom) slightly bigger than DKNY Express for 60 thousand pesos, but this was during a solo show, where prices are naturally higher because of the markup set by the gallery and other considerations. It therefore pleases me no end that a long-time art collector who bought from me directly would pay a relatively high price for DKNY Express..

Red Nude, 2012, acrylic on paper, 12 X 18 inches

But Ray, it seems, belong to that rare breed of art collectors, true art collectors, who buys art not for speculation or investment, but  (to borrow Leonidas Benesa's words) "for their own personal delectation." He is not a bargain-hunter when it comes to art buying, Which just goes to show how high artists are on Ray's list of worthy individuals. Thank you very much, Ray.

Seraglio Fantasy, 2005, oil on canvas, 24 X 24 inches

THE WILD SWANS

By Arnel Mirasol

Of all the illustrations I did, The Wild Swans is the one most borrowed by bloggers and website owners. I'm flattered. But I'll be flattered more if the people who shared this image asked permission from me first - or better yet, from the real copyright owner, Reni Roxas - before posting this image to their sites. When I searched the internet, I discovered that when you googled Arnaldo Mirasol, around fourteen websites will appear with the Wild Swans as adornment. Here is the list of those websites: Sacred Familiar, Watercolordreams, indigodreams, sosuperawesome, Dangerous Prayer, illustratosphere, Altared Spaces, Illustrated imaginarium, Enlighten me, In The Land Of Lux, The Suffolks, Pinterest, traveling ghost, and papertigers. Of these. only the last two made it a point to obtain my permission.

(Shown below are cropped screenshot samples of those websites.)

So, Reni Roxas, publisher of Tahanan Books, must have chosen right when she picked The Wild Swans to add to her collection - instead of The Little Mermaid (below), the cover art for the book Once Upon a Time, which many consider as my best work. Reni said that she wants the Wild Swans because it can stand by itself - that is, it doesn't need any manuscript to define or explain it. or give it significance. Many agreed with her, because admirers of The Wild Swans see it as not just a "mere illustration": they almost always describe it as like a surrealist painting. Which is a compliment in my opinion, because I consider surrealism as the most cerebral of all art movements or styles.

The Little Mermaid's "own website"

MONNAR BALDEMOR'S EVASION AND ESCAPE

By Arnel Mirasol

The boy Monnar watching his father Manny Baldemor at work

How does a son escape the long shadow cast by a famous father? Monnar Baldemor does it by signing his paintings merely with his first name, and by creating works antipodal in both theme and technique to the paintings of his father Manny.

Since first stepping into the University of the East School of Music and Fine Arts in Caloocan, Monnar had tried his best to downplay his relationship to the famous painter Manny Baldemor. He said that the pressure on him to prove himself worthy of being called Manny's son was palpable. What Monnar dreaded most at that time was to be compared to Manny and be found wanting.

That's the reason why Monnar pursued cartooning and illustrations when he graduated from college in 1989 with a BFA degree major in Advertising. He shunned serious painting for several years, and worked as graphic artist and later on as art director for the magazine Woman Today. He also did comic strips on the side ( sample below)  for newspapers and Glitter Magazine. He is working for sixteen years now as Design Director for Women's Journal Magazine.

But the call of the muse was insistent, and the son of the famous painter cannot ignore it for long.

Monnar did what another former cartoonist did. Like Malang, Monnar left cartooning and went full time into painting. But Monnar, unlike Malang and his father Manny, didn't adopt the cubist style originated by National Artist Vicente Manansala. He marched to the beat of different drummers, so to speak. And they are all foreigners. Monnar professed admiration for Hieronymus Bosch, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, and Sergio Aragones : an admiration  manifested all too clearly in the iconography and the powerful narrative content of his drawings and paintings (below).

Monnar didn't explicitly mentioned Paul Klee among his favorites, but I discern traces of Klee's influence, inadvertent though it may be, in the way Monnar colors his works (below), and his fascination with lines. Paul Klee's famous quote about the dot being a line that went for a walk was probably Monnar's (who is an ardent proponent of dynamic linearism in art) guiding artistic principle too. We can perhaps also attribute this linearism and fondness for filling up his canvases with distorted figures to Monnar's past as a cartoonist. Monnar's early works are composite caricatures elevated to the status of fine paintings.

Odyssey

His painting Terminal Illusions (below right) is a case in point. At first glance, this painting would induce viewers to conclude that it is but another surrealist painting that deals with metaphysics and dreams. But Monnar promptly disabused me of that notion. He explained that this painting is merely about the traffic problem in Metro Manila and elsewhere. He opined that no matter how many overpasses and fly-overs are constructed, the problem would still be there - unresolved and stressing out everyone all around.

Though obfuscated somewhat by incongruously juxtaposed images that hinted at some psychological dysfunction, the very mundane and humor-laced message of this painting would make it an editorial cartoon, blown up to medium-sized painting proportions.

Monnar has mellowed now. He had eschewed social commentary in his recent works, excising from his graphic repertoire grotesqueries, like disembodied body parts and some such incongruities, that would make his paintings pregnant with meaning. These new works (below) approach non-objective abstraction because of the reduction and simplification they have undergone. These abstract paintings, with their plethora of twisting lines, are the most Klee-esque among his works. They looked celebratory, and would perhaps indicate Monnar's coming to terms with things as they are and escape from a rather provocative artistic past.

• 
  

The Smaller Cloud

City of Lights

Suburbia

Soft Act with Architectonic Future

Monnar will hold a solo show at the Artologist Gallery this coming August. This show would mark Monnar's return to clear figuration. The paintings for this show, which are about fiestas, are a far cry from the paintings that Monnar used to make. When asked about the shift, Monnar said "Ganyan dapat ang mga artists. Kailangan flexible ka. Hindi puro angst. Meron din naman tayong lighter side.

Even though Monnar's new works have traces of Manny's themes and technique, he won't be compared anymore to his father. That's because Monnar, early in his career, had already produced a body of works so packed with power and so replete with profundities that the painters he'll be compared to if he maintains his course are the artists who are stars of the international art firmament. And that could only mean one thing - Monnar Baldemor is beginning to cast a long shadow himself.

Monnar with wife Cheryl

MAYU SOLANO'S REMINISCENCES IN PASTEL SHADES

By Arnel Mirasol

Happy Thoughts is the title of Mayu Solano's collaborative show with Karen de Pano Picadizo at the Artologist Gallery. I remarked that their paintings must be of happy memories or events. Mayu agreed, and said that the happy events that are the subjects of her paintings are not necessarily memories of her childhood, but rather her recollections mostly of recent events in her life.

Although the movies and music are frequent sources of inspiration for her, Mayu confessed that she starts each painting with no definite motifs in mind yet. Her working method is impromptu. She begins by laying down on canvas the colors she likes until she sees on it the right combination of colors and form. It is only then that Mayu begins to delineate in greater detail the images that she thinks she sees on the canvas.

Toy balloons are recurrent motifs in Mayu's paintings, and candy-colored houses, too. Anime inspired characters, like the one-eyed creatures of her 2010 works, appeared in her paintings from time to time, which make it easy for us to guess who her influences were when it comes to art making. Mayu specifically mentioned the Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara as one of her favorites. Nara is famous for his "portraits" of cartoony characters with big though menacing eyes. I mentioned Takashi Murakami, but Mayu said that she doesn't know of him. Well, Murakami is the founder of Superflat, a Japanese art movement that espouses the utilization of anime and Japanese kitsch imagery in paintings and sculptures. Takashi Murakami is Japan's own Jeff Koons - the American pop artist who inherited the mantle of pop art-stardom from Andy Warhol.



While Mayu's early works resemble the paintings of the Superflat artists, a shift had occurred lately in her style. Mayu had gravitated away from Superflat. The nuance may be indiscernible, but it is there. Her paintings can be categorized now as naif, or more to the point, as pop-naif., because she consciously adopted the child's way of limning forms and the pop artist' penchant for using loud colors and contemporary visual motifs.

The painting I am Lost in the Sound of Separation, But we Will Play Again, Sarah best exemplified pop-naif. The focal point in the painting, the girl holding a heart-shaped toy balloon - which is perhaps Sarah, or perhaps Mayu herself - was drawn in the way that any child untutored in art would draw it. The figure which is almost stick-like is also colored stridently which strongly suggested affinity with pop art. Sarah was Mayu's childhood friend. I gathered from her verbalizing on the nature of friendship that Sarah and Mayu may have drifted away from each other many years ago, but have now reconciled, and even became comadres. Happy ending, that - which enables this painting to conform precisely with the theme of an exhibition on happy thoughts.

             

You and Me, on the other hand, is a tribute to cats. Mayu belongs to that special  breed of human beings who are so kind and considerate of animals that they treat their pets as family. Kitty, Meow-meow, and Miki are the names of Mayu's cats. The cat on the lap of the girl in the painting is Sesire, Mayu's imaginary version of the Cheshire Cat character in Alice in Wonderland. Let's hear it straight from Mayu: " Yung pusa po sa paintng, version ko sya ni Cheshire Cat sa Alice in Wonderland. Gusto ko yung character nya -  whimsical, mysterious, hindi madaling madidiktahan yung nasa isip nya, pero naiintindihan nya yung nangyayari." Another happy painting, You and Me is a depiction of the tender bond that link the master, or mistress for that matter, to her cat. The pastel color scheme adds to the affectionate tone because pastels are the colors of endearment, and evoke memories of girlish crushes and the like.  




Mayu is a fine arts graduate from FEATI.  She grew up in Dasmarinas, Cavite where she and her family lives up to now. After graduation, she tried her hand for a while in sales - when she handled a certain brand of arts material, She now paints full time, facilitates art workshops, and dabbles a bit in writing stories for children. She was also into performance when she was in school, being an ardent enthusiast of the art of theater and dance, An artist as multifaceted as Mayu, may seem unfocused to some because of her myriad involvement in different disciplines. But that is not so in her case because we can see from her works that she managed to forge a link between painting and children's literature in the art she does - disciplines which occupies much of her time these days.

Mayu may not be aware of this, but this fusion of painting and children's literature in her artworks may yet define her as an artist. She is not the first painter to tackle literary themes. I could cite several whose subject matters are drawn from books. There were, for example,  the Pre-Raphaelites from an earlier era, like Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, and William Holman Hunt - and Marcel Antonio, that brilliant contemporary artist who painted scenes from Shakespeare's plays, and even from Alice in Wonderland. Mayu's paintings are, by no means, as masterly as the paintings of the artists I mentioned. But they need not be, because her current style suits just fine the theme she loves to take up in her paintings, which are reminiscences in pastel shades of things past and charmingly girlish.

FRANCIS ARNAEZ' PSYCHOLOGICAL DISSECTIONS

By Arnel Mirasol

Painter Francis Arnaez (above) is a storyteller. His paintings are portraits of people whose stories he knew. They are in-depth narratives, a dissection as it were of his sitters' inner selves. Where most people tend to gloss over imperfections, Arnaez does the reverse and mars perfection.

That's what his impastos are for, said Arnaez - to uglify not only his models, but also the very painting itself. An objective this writer sees as not achieved, because the slashes of thick paint he slathers over parts of his model's faces only heightened the expressionist element in his "neo-surrealist" works, and makes them more beautiful, I must say.

Arnaez graduated recently from the Technological University of the Philippines (TUP), where he majored in advertising. He used to work as graphic artist for Wacom before he turned to painting full-time: a decision that's not easy to come by because of his parents' understandable disdain for jobs that don't give one a steady income. But Arnaez is a true artist, a very serious one it seems, because he stresses that he is not particularly interested in the business aspect of art. All he cares for he says is to win the appreciation and critical nod of his peers and other art enthusiasts. Thus, Arnaez isn't afraid to create works which is not of the usual commercial kind. His paintings go deeper than that because they are not meant to be mere adornments. Arnaez' paintings are veritable still theaters of the inner drama, complexes, turmoils, and rage he feels every time he sits in front of his easel.

Doubts on Paradise

Let us take his painting Doubts on Paradise as an example. Arnaez' family live in a house inside a compound somewhere in Ermita. He grew up in that neighborhood, and we can presume that the neighborhood shaped him into the kind of man he had become. Arnaez so loved the place that he came to look at it as some sort of paradise.

But as we all know, paradises are not forever; one gets evicted from it sooner or later. And that exactly was what happened to the Arnaez family. They received a notice from the owners telling them to vacate the place at some specific date. As Francis Arnaez' world crumbled, his painting Doubts on Paradise got created. The painting, a self-portrait, which he started while they were packing their belongings, is a lamentation about the unfairness of fate, and an expression of his latent wish that things stay as they were. Their old place, which once was paradise to him, no longer seem to be so. This would seem like sour-graping, but it is not exactly. That is just Arnaez' instinctive response to mitigate the hurt caused by what he probably interpreted as rejection.

Of the local artists, Arnaez admires Ronald Ventura the most. And rightly so. Arnaez is not the only one who admires him, because nowadays one can see proliferating in the art scene here a plethora of Ventura painting look-alikes. Probably, what many Ventura imitators admire (or envy) most was Ventura's reaching the pinnacle of commercial success despite the undiluted dark surreality of his early works. But Arnaez admires a different aspect of Ventura. He said that he like Ventura not because of his run-away commercial success, but "because of the way he thinks - iba eh."  Arnaez is so right there. And that perhaps is what linked Arnaez to Ventura. Both had the same propensity to tackle profound, and even dark, themes, whose depth and intensity are so scarce in these parts.

The very titles of his paintings (The Flesh is Willing But the Spirit is Weak, Your Spotlight on Subject's So Incorrect, As the Soul Contradicts the Flesh) hinted at something deeper than what the words suggest. From his explanations, I deduced that Arnaez' recurring themes are the inner conflicts that he underwent in this phase of his life when everything is on the balance, and he teeters on the edge of either failure or success. Another recurrent preoccupation is Arnaez'  psychological dissections of his sitters - best exemplified by the painting As the Soul Contradicts the Flesh - which portrays a woman he thought he knew well even before he got acquainted with her, but who turned out to be the opposite of everything he thought her to be. Arnaez' inclusion of slashes of thick paint on both sides of the woman's face was but his attempt to mask the flaws he thought he perceived in the woman's character.

I've gathered in the course of our conversation that Arnaez doesn't care one bit whether his artworks sell or not.  "I believe na hindi dapat gawing business ang art, eh," said Arnaez,  by which he meant, I presume, that artists shouldn't be too obsessed with making artworks that will surely sell. Arnaez is still young, and also single I suppose. He may not be in dire need of money now, but I'm sure that he will be when he faces the task of raising a family. Artists like most people need to eat. And the money their paintings make is what would put food on their tables and paints on their palettes.

But despite Arnaez' low regard for art that is decorative and therefore easy to sell,  Ron and Bambi de Castro, owners of the Artologist Gallery where he showed these paintings recently, obviously believe in the potential of Arnaez to make it big in the art scene. They have no doubt that with the kind of paintings he makes, which appeal not only to the eyes but to the intellect as well, Arnaez would be a run-away commercial success, too - whether he likes it or not.

As the Soul Contradicts the Flesh

MY INTERVIEW WITH artyii

Me at work on an illustration for Alamat ng Palay

Artyii is an online art gallery based in Singapore. On May 5, 2011, I received an email from Olivia Isabelle of artyii asking me to agree to be interviewed by her. Below is an excerpt from her letter.

Dear Arnaldo Mirasol,

How have you been? Thank you for joining on Artyii.

Since you have joined Artyii, many people is interested to know more about you and your art. Therefore, we intend to have an interview with you. This interview will be placed under news section and give you 1 week homepage limelight. We hope by doing this, people will understand more about you and your art.

Here are some questions that you can answer. And if you are comfortable with this, please do reply us before 18 May 2011.

- Share a story with us, how did you start to paint?
- What factors influenced your art or style the most?
- What was the turning point in your artistic career?
- Tell us more about your latest works
- Tell us about the greatest sacrifice you had to make to pursue your artistic passion?...

Thank you very much and have a nice day.

Best Regards,

Olivia Isabelle

:

Below are my answers to her questions:

SHARE A STORY WITH US. HOW DID YOU START TO PAINT?

     I was still a boy and not yet of school age when I discovered that I like to draw. Of course, I don't have yet the manual dexterity of a mature painter and my drawings were just childish doodles similar to those done by other boys my age. But what set me apart from them later on was my persistence in learning how to draw as realistically as possible. I drew everyday on all available surfaces, even on the wooden walls of our house, that my mother had no choice but to provide me with all the art materials I requested. My first drawing tools were pencils and crayons. When I was in grade one, I started using watercolor and later on, colored pencils. I was also in grade one when my artistic talent was sort of discovered by my teacher in Grade One, Miss Mercy Ramos (below left).. She asked us, her pupils, to submit as project a big drawing of a bird, which I did with flourish, that she can't helped being fascinated upon seeing it. She then brought me forthwith to the office of the Assistant Principal who likewise praised my drawing profusely and advised me to keep up the good work.

     I was most prolific in my art making when I was twelve years old. It so happened that we had an Art subject under Mr. Joe R.R. Mortera (below right, the fellow at the center with sunglasses), who was also our scout and drum and bugle corps master. Under him, I was inspired and challenged to try doing several art genres, like mechanical drawing, colored pencil drawings of flowers, fruits, birds, fishes and other animals, watercolor portraits, and even "abstract expressionist" paintings on paper with melted crayons as medium. As a result of that frenetic artistic activity, I was able to compile  a thick album of artworks, which, unfortunately,  were all lost in a fire which burned down our house in 1969. A great pity, for I surely would have relished having them with me. It would be lovely having a visual record of my development as a painter, from the time I was a child until now when I'm in my mid-fifties. Anyway, all that is past. and I have moved on.

    I was around twelve or thirteen years old when my mother bought me a box of oil paints. Through habit, I first used water to thin the paint. I realized my mistake right away, got myself a few spoonfuls of edible oil in a cup (I've never heard of linseed oil, then), and climbed up to the roof of our new house to begin painting. I've also never heard of canvas, so, I just used a small piece of scrap plywood as my painting surface. I remember that for my first painting, I choose the sunset at Manila Bay as subject matter. Our old house is quite near the Manila North Harbor, and when I'm on the roof, I can see the bows, funnels, and masts of the ships, but not the sea. So, my painting didn't include the sea- just the colorful twilight sky and the mountains of the Bataan peninsula in the far distance. I smartly avoided painting the ships because I found them very complicated and way beyond my copying skills. In high school, a Literature teacher who also dabbled in painting, Mr. Benjamin Roda, sold me several Grumbacher "How to Paint" books. I say that everything I know about the fundamentals of painting I learned from those books. That's why when I entered the UST College of Fine Arts, I was already a bit adept in handling oils. 

WHAT FACTORS INFLUENCED YOUR ART OR STYLE THE MOST?

     I was also very much fascinated by books from the time I was a boy until now when I'm fast approaching senior-citizenhood, hahaha...Many times, I found my artistic inspirations in art books, like the time when I was browsing in a bookstore in 1981. I saw in a book a painting showing a naked child, a girl, lifting the edge of a blanket which is also the edge of the sea, and underneath which a dog lies sleeping. The title of the painting is Sea-Shade-Dog (below), and the artist is Salvador Dali. I was hooked.

The moment I had the money, I went back to that store to buy the book, which unfortunately was already sold. I saw another book, "The Life and Art of Salvador Dali" by Robert Descharnes, which I bought at once even though it's thicker and therefore more expensive. The book, which is still with me and which had become my painting "bible" of sorts,  had provided inspirations for many of my early surrealist paintings. I don't know if I should be flattered or humbled, but every time a person somewhat well-versed on art saw my work, he was sure to mention, in one way or another, in relation to my work, the name Dali. That was in the early eighties, the time when the the Marcos regime was being set-up for its eventual downfall. It was also the heyday of the Filipino social realists who focused on doing art with overt political and socially-relevant subject matter. Images of poverty, exploitation, and government repression were the staples of paintings then. And I rode the trend.  I immediately saw then the twist needed to make my surrealist paintings a bit different from Dali's. If Dali's surrealism emanated as he asserted from his subconscious, mine emanated from my conscious awareness of what ails Philippine society. Though the paintings I did during that period weren't commercially successful, I could say that it had given me some foretaste of Andy Warhol's proverbial "fifteen minutes of fame"(below). A painting from that period- which I called my "social-surrealist" phase- won for me in 1984 the top prize in the First Metrobank Annual Painting Competition. It was a most prestigious competition then as it is at present. Now, three decades after my encounter with that surrealist book, I still haven't weaned myself away from the influence exerted on me by art books. I still sought inspirations from them from time to time. I bought books whenever my meager finances allowed it, that I now have in my cramped studio a mini-library of sorts.

My fifteen minutes of fame

WHAT WAS THE TURNING POINT IN YOUR ARTISTIC CAREER?

     Well, I could clearly see that turning point.  I would say that it was when I got hired in 1996 by Reni Roxas and Marc Singer, publishers of Tahanan Books, to illustrate picture books for them. It was while working for Tahanan that me and my artworks got featured in magazines and newspapers. I can also say that I was at the peak of my illustration career when I did for Tahahan Books the illustrations for three books, namely, "The Brothers Wu and the Good-Luck Eel", "Hans Christian Andersen: Once Upon a Time", and "The Brothers Grimm: Long Ago and Far Away". I even got to show and sell the original illustrations for the last two books at my two consecutive solo exhibitions at the Crucible Gallery here in Manila. My second show at the Crucible also yielded an unexpected bonus; it managed to earn a flattering review from the highly-respected Filipino art critic, Constantino Tejero (below right).

The supposed excellence of my illustrations for the Brothers Wu, in turn, landed me in the 2002 Honour List of the International Board on Books for Young People which is based in Basel, Switzerland. But what made me really consider my years with Tahanan as the turning point in my art career was because it was during that time that I again got the idea to do some serious painting on the side. The suite of paintings I managed to complete in between the time I was doing illustrations was exhibited side by side with my Brothers Grimm illustrations at the Crucible. I realized that the line dividing illustration from serious painting is really very thin, and it really won't take much effort shifting from one genre to another. So, that's what's keeping me busy nowadays- doing illustrations and pure paintings one after the other

TELL US MORE ABOUT YOUR LATEST WORKS.

     I am now on my third year of working on the illustrations for the book tentatively titled "Mga Modernong Alamat/ Modern Legends". The book, written by Segundo Matias, Jr., requires 28 illustrations, and is to be published by Lampara Books. The book is a compilation of four stories (Legend of the Eagle, Legend of the Bamboo, Legend of Rice, and Legend of the Carabao), and each story would have seven illustrations each. Illustrations for Legends of the Eagle (below) and Bamboo were done in acrylic on paper.

After completing the 14 illustrations for those two stories, I kind of grew tired of the whole thing, and decided to do something more challenging, which is to do the next series of illustrations for the "Alamat ng Palay/Legend of Rice" in oil, on big canvases. And it was challenging indeed, and at least for me,  ground-breaking too. Because in this series of illustrations, I felt that I have developed new composition and brush techniques which I could use later on in my paintings. And so far, the remarks made on my current output is very heartening; a friend even considered one illustration I did, the "Miss Butterfly" (below left), as the best artwork I've done so far.

As I have said before, I'm also doing some serious painting on the side, which I see as the more experimental aspect of my art making. Before 2008, the paintings I did can be categorized in terms of technique as sharp focus realist art - the same label tagged onto Andrew Wyeth's paintings. It was during that year that I did "Venus Of Boracay", my version of Titian's "Venus of Urbino", but which I painted in imitation of Fernando Botero's obese nude forms. Everything in that painting was experimental- from my utilization of figural distortion and abstract forms, to my employment of palette knife for applying paint to the background. The "Venus of Boracay" belong to what I called my Deconstructed Venuses series, which would later on include two more paintings- "My Serenade" and "The Decline and Fall of the Greek Trumpeter". I plan to do a fourth  painting which would involve my appropriating, disrobing and bloating of Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa". Some people may consider this Deconstructed Venuses images as pretty profane, so, to even things up, I took a new tack, and started a series on people involve in acts other than seduction. Since obesity is oftentimes associated with excess and decadence, I did a complete reverse and drew my new figures, of women playing the guitar and violin among others, thinner and long-limbed (below right)

Gregorian Cant: Homage to Heart

TELL US ABOUT THE GREATEST SACRIFICE YOU HAD TO MAKE TO PURSUE YOUR ARTISTIC PASSION.

     I remember the time, just before I finished high school, when my father had a talk with me. He had always known that I wanted to take up fine arts in college. But my father said that I should take up law instead. He said that he could afford to finance my college studies no matter what course I take because he was already earning good money at the time as a chief marine engineer. He added that having a lawyer in the family was a sort of family dream, because his own father wanted him to be a lawyer, too. And besides (and this floored me), he said that since lawyers are very fond of arguing, the law profession would suit me fine, because I was fond anyway of reasoning out with and answering back at my mother.

Well, looking back, I realized that I really would have been a lawyer by now, had I put my mind into it. I've always known that I have a sharp memory, and am  a voracious reader too, so all the required readings and memorizations at law school wouldn't have intimidated me, and passing the bar exams would perhaps be just a breeze. But the pull of the muse was stronger. When the time came to enroll at the UST College of Fine Arts, I didn't even chose as my major or specialization the more practical and commercial choice, which is Advertising. I chose to pursue Painting, which according to my eldest sister, Ate Lina (below, at extreme left of photo) is a profession suitable only for rich people who'll still eat even if they never sell a single painting. She must be wrong there, because nowadays, I see all around me painters who've become rich doing paintings full-time. Of course, she may have uttered the truth in my case, because after decades of striving, I still have not hit the jackpot, so to speak. But the ball game is still on, and the wheel is still turning, and I'm sure that one way or the other, the hoped for fame and fortune will one day be mine.- hopefully, hahaha...

In this photo from left, front row: Mama Ninay and Papa Nene. Second  row: Ate Lina, myself, Rudy, and Rizza.

     But seriously now, let me conclude with these words. Truman Capote, in the preface to his book "Music for Chameleons", wrote: When God hands you a gift, He also hands you a whip; and the whip is intended solely for self-flagellation." Well, that is the story of my life, an artist's life, which in retrospect, seem more torturous than gratifying. But I have no regrets: I chose to be a painter. I'm not particularly devout, but my fervent belief in my destiny as a painter betrays a certain spirituality on my part. I am convinced that our Creator placed me on this earth to create art.

ADAM NACIANCENO'S ACHROMATIC WOMEN

By Arnel Mirasol

Ratio of Space and Immaturity

Painters who thrive on monochrome are  rarae aves . rare birds - they are unique or unusual individuals, whose self-imposed limitation on their use of color set them apart in a Philippine art scene where colorful artworks seem to be the norm. Lao Lian Ben is an outstanding example. Lao, throughout his painting career never betrayed his fidelity to black and white. And with good results, too, because his paintings can easily command six figure price tags nowadays.

Now comes Adam Nacianceno, a twenty-two year old Fine Arts student from TUP (Technological University of the Philippines), who'll open with Francis Arnaez  their two-man show on April 18, at the Artologist Gallery. Entitled Stillness Hours, the show, by its very title, promises to be not your usual run-of-the-mill art exhibit. Stillness Hours refer to the period when a state of calm suffuses an artist engaged in the act of creation, when time seems suspended, and all that exist in his immediate milieu are him and his tools for art making. Nacianceno and Arnaez also appended to the main title subtitles personal to each of them, which further hinted of the state of isolation each artist underwent in coming up with their collection. Nacianceno gave his suite of paintings the title Amid the Primal Things, which implies a commentary on his haunts and a probing of things there, and also perhaps of the psyche, to its roots.

If his works, both past and present, are any indication, we can easily conclude that Nacianceno is enamored with women - to the point of obsession.  His fascination with them, though, doesn't seem to have any erotic implication. Nacianceno only paints extreme close-ups of women's faces - never their bodies. While the face itself is rendered poster-style in the manner of the pop artists, the hair and background adornments, done in acrylic and brush and ink, evoke memories of the Jugendstil or Art Nouveau. Nacianceno's paintings, although belonging to the figurative school, also hovers somewhat at the edge of abstraction. His penchant for utilizing Pollock's drip-and-splatter technique marks him as a quasi-abstract expressionist.. 

But Nacianceno didn't stop at just depicting the mere physicality of the women's faces. The titles he gave to his old pieces (below) - like Mood Swing, Exile in an Uncertain Future, and Muted Gray - provided the profundity that elevated his paintings to visual poetry, and allowed us the means to decipher for ourselves the meaning hidden in each work.

Mood Swing

Exile in an Uncertain Future

Muted Gray

But why the fixation with black and white?  Nacianceno has a ready, though roundabout, explanation for this. He said that he uses only black and white because he wants to prove that these non-colors are also capable of showing the beauty of colors.  Nacianceno wants his viewers to feel, not see, the colors suggested by his artworks. By color, he  refers not to the hues literally, but to the emotion, drama. and conflict that are part and parcel of really profound works.

Nacianceno will, in time, belong to that illustrious roster of TUP graduates who are now making waves, not only in the Philippine art scene, but also abroad. This roster includes Lynyrd Paras, Mark Andy Garcia, Froilan Calayag, and Dex Fernandez. These four, though proponents of radically different styles, all exhibited early in their career the same tendency to be icon-smashers, flaunting their irreverence all around, and yet still earned for themselves the kudos that the truly gifted deserve. Nacianceno is almost there. All he needs to do to be deemed a peer of the four is for him to continue on polishing his craft, and also perhaps to be consistently loyal to his palette - like Lao. Nacianceno's and Lao's paintings are achromatic, yes - but it doesn't mean that they are colorless.