DRAWING FROM LIFE

The artist, who was dressed in a punkish all-black outfit which include a skull T-shirt for his exhibit opening, said he met the punks in London where he lived for 13 years.

“The punks lived in squats. They’d go and sign their UB40, [an unemployment benefit form card] where they get a weekly allowance and they used the money to buy paraphernalia and dyes. I found it interesting. I asked them to pose for me and I paid them £2 per hour. They agreed because they were hard up, too. They brought their own casettes to listen to their punk music [while I drew them].”

During the years that he was in London to start his family, he did many on-the-spot portraits of the punks.

He explained that back in the 1980s, minimalism and abstract painting were “uso” (trendy), “but there was a revival for figuration. Me, I love to draw from life. In a way, it’s good to revive that because you can never remove the skill from drawing from live, the hand-to-eye coordination.”

He added that he has always loved drawing. Back in London he was inspired by other Londonbased artists like David Hockney, R.B. Kitaj, and Lucien Freud when it came to drawing.

Drawing from life is more challenging than painting from imagination, said the artist.

“[When you do it] from memories, you can invent, you dream, but from live, you draw the subject in front but it’s not really copying photographically, because the model usually moves, you capture the personality of the model.”

RETROSPECTIVE? ‘marami pa pala ito ah