RICARTE AND VICTOR PURUGANAN: CROSS-CULTURAL FUSION
Ricarte Puruganan (1912-1998) is one of the so-called Thirteen Moderns, a group of trailblazing Filipino artists who broke away from academic and conservative styles of paintings in the 1930s.
Born in Dingas, Ilocos Norte, he was a musician, composer, poet and painter with a unique style that consciously combines indigenous and folk art elements and modernist flatness and painting methods. Puruganan was also an articulate art theorist whose views of cross-cultural fusion of artistic persuasion between traditional Filipino art and Western modern art reflects the Filipino’s unique syn- theses in the emergent national cultural experience.
In the 1950s, Puruganan left Manila for Ilocos Norte where he was active in sculpture, architecture and landscaping. He helped design and build government edifices, parks and plazas in various towns and municipalities in the Ilocos region. His works are part of the National Museum Hall of Filipino Masters collection.
Ricarte’s son Victor is also acquainted with the world of arts; his father being his mentor. Victor’s color schemes are unconventional; his range is versatile — from ethnic and traditional folk art to futuristic supremacist and abstract impressionist art.
He has the ability to shift from one medium to another and from one genre of art to another. Victor, like his father, is passionate about art and life.