‘Sun Gazing’ presents perils of unbridled ambition
THERE is no shortage of literature about characters having some and wanting it all. Icarus, for instance, was specifically told by his father, Daedalus, to maintain a midlevel height during their escape from Crete to prevent their makeshift wings of feather and wax from being dampened by the seawater below or getting melted by the sun above. But upon feeling the rush of perceived superiority from gliding in the air, Icarus craved for more. He wanted to go higher. Hubris took over and Icarus darted skyward, ultimately turning his father’s warning into prophecy.
Another such tale is the Tower of Babel, where a united human race speaking the same tongue decided to build a mighty city that featured a tower tall enough “with its top in the heavens.” God knew of that plan and confounded the people’s speech, foiling the scheme and creating the multi-lingual society of today.
Bulacan artist Don Bryan Bunag collated these stories and other related materials to ponder on their shared cautionary tale against letting the dream take over the dreamer. Bunag presents his musings in his latest solo exhibition, titled Sun Gazing. The show opened over the weekend and is on view at Eskinita Art Gallery until March 24.
“Maganda na maging ambitious, pero ’pag sumobra ay napapasama,” the artist said during the gallery’s recent Instagram Live feature of the new show. “Tulad sa practice ng sun gazing: ’pag sumobra tayo sa pagtitig sa araw, nakakabulag. Nawawalan tayo ng paningin, hindi lang literally, kung hindi pati na rin spiritually at
philosophically.”
Bunag relates to the problem of mistaking zeal for greed on a personal level. The artist grew up in Bulakan, Bulacan, and has witnessed his hometown be consumed by the pursuits of urbanization and modernization.
In the show, Bunag presents Burying Soil, a sevenpiece series of photographs that capture his stomping grounds just as how he wants to remember them. The artist presented scenes of rice fields and rivers that feel as though are both about celebration and longing for what once was.
The theme of duality between past and present is carried over in the chosen medium as well. Bunag took the shots using a digital camera but processed the images using cyanotype, a chemical developed in the early 1840s to record biological artifacts. The artist then polluted the images with overlapping layers of drawing, paints and stitches as if they were tattered memories.
Bunag also presents a couple of installations in the show. One is titled Reverberations, which play on light, acrylic, aluminum and sawdust-reinforced epoxy. The artist reflected on the affected mangroves by the airport project in Bulacan. He wondered that if only his hometown could speak, if it can express how it feels about being the price to mankind’s concept of progress, what would it say?
“Isang beses, biglang nag-echo sa ’kin ’yung composition ni Julian Felipe, ang nagsulat ng ‘Lupang Hinirang,’” said Bunag, explaining why his figures of dead trees spell out the final line of the national anthem: “Ang mamatay ng dahil sa ’yo.”
In the piece, the artist infused the epoxy base with sawdust from reclaimed wood as extender. “Pati ’yung medium, ginagamit ko ’yun as part of the message.
Naglalaban pa rin ’yung pagiging organic and modern.”
At the end of his presentation, Bunag reflected on the role of the artist in today’s world.
“Sa start ng pandemic, na-label tayo as nonessential. Pero para sa ’kin, essential [tayong mga artist] sa bawat kaluluwa ng mga indibidwal,” he said. “Bilang artist, may responsibilidad tayong maghatid ng mensahe sa bawa’t isa. Para makatulong tayo hindi man sa [pisical na aspeto], pero para sa ispiritual.”