MIAMI IN HIS (HE)ART
The art I am doing currently is very geometric and minimal
Peter Markus Jentes, as everyone knows, is the son of hotelier Peter Jentes and the former Miss Republic of the Philippines and Hyatt model Minnie Cagatao (now Mrs. Lawrie). Minnie, who is my kababayan (townsman) from Isabela, was also famous for being the manager of Schwarzalader, the authentic German Restaurant that executives and ladies-who-lunch frequented for their healthful offerings.
In Erie, Pennsylvania, where she now lives, Minnie is admired and respected in her community and country club for her terrific skills as a hostess and fund-raiser for many good causes.
Her story deserves thrice as much space as we are giving Markus but that will have to be for the near future. The nice thing about Minnie is she’s always hot no matter if she occasionally hibernates.
I was talking with Markus recently and I found his journey as an artist remarkable. I enjoyed talking with him because he was so relaxed and yet so well-mannered, articulate and well-informed about his passions, namely, photography, graphic design and advertising.
Only this 4 July, Markus’s first solo art exhibition, “MIAMI,” opened at the Altro Mondo Arte Contemporanea on the 3rd floor of The Picasso Boutique Serviced Residences in Salcedo Village. The exhibition will be until 1 September, so there’s enough time for Markus’s friends and fans, as well as art collectors and critics to come and take a serious look at his works. If you want a curated visit, Markus has reserved Tuesday and Thursday afternoons when he will personally be around to share his thoughts.
DT: Where did you attend college?
PMJ: I majored in Fine Arts at
Pepperdine. I had an Associate degree at Platt College. I started college in 1999 and officially stopped school in 2001.
DT: How long have you been engaged in visual arts?
PMJ: It started when I was a child. About 4 or 5 years old. I started drawing a lot and when my mom figured out that I liked to do all these things, she started to push me into taking it more seriously. She tried to push me to continue more, to try experimenting more. As I was growing up I would see she had all these colored pencils and pens because she was drawing things for fashion. She was also doing interior design and some sketching.
DT: Did you do art in boarding school? Didn’t you attend one in Switzerland?
PMJ: Mostly Brent here, and then from 10th grade until my graduation in high school, I was in boarding school in Switzerland. I had my first exhibit there, a school exhibit. So that’s where I said, “Okay, I think I need to take this more seriously.” They were actually all pen and ink drawings. It was a group show.
DT: So, where did you first exhibit outside of boarding school?
PMJ: They’re two group shows, one at the Howard A. White Center and Fredrick R. Weisman Museum of Art.
DT: How has your evolution been as an artist?
PMJ: I slowly tried different avenues and I was a very young artist at that time so I had no real style yet. I was still figuring out if I can do things; if I could draw things the way I wanted them then, that’s what I would do. And then in college, that went to another level. I was exposed to very high levels of art and different styles, sort of drawing and painting exercises with so many different materials but then there was always a twist. Let’s say, you’ll paint everything black and draw everything by erasing. So, it was a very interesting way of approaching drawing. They challenge you in many different ways.
DT: How was Pepperdine?
PMJ: They make you take certain electives that they start you with like drawing. But after the electives, those who weren’t very good at drawing started to flourish in sculpting and welding and doing something different. So we went our own separate ways because we started to focus on very specific types of art.
DT: Why did you major in painting?
PMJ: I fell in love with the fact that drawing was a way to express oneself but painting was doing that on a much higher level and the reason for that was the brush is not as exact as a pen or pencil and that’s where the beauty lies. You can use that brush to hone your skills to make really beautiful photographic-like paintings or you can go completely expressive and abstract. With a brush, you add pigment and it changes everything. And then the surfaces you can paint on are almost endless so I said, this is where maybe I should start going.
When I got into college, I started to focus on more expressionist abstractions. The expressionists wanted to be freer with form. They wanted to create a scene but they didn’t want hard-edged fine detail. They wanted strokes to convey an overall picture.
DT: So a dog doesn’t look like a dog?
PMJ: It would look like a dog but it looks like it would have strokes and splotches and lines to create the figure.
That was where I could have fun; I could create scenes of L.A., Malibu, Venice. Specifically, the houses that you see, and then you see the sunset, the colors, they all change. I would drive home in the afternoon because my classes would end late. I would see these beautiful sunsets and I would get inspired by these structures, these houses. I would start to paint these scenes and they eventually became the subject matter for a show. In a group show of the graduating class, everybody had their own specialty. Mine was inanimate scenes of what I would see going home.
DT: What was the turning point? When did you decide to devote more time to your art?
PMJ: After deciding a few yearsago that I’ll start slowly going back to fine arts, last year was when I said, ‘This is going to be where I make a decision to go non-stop art from here onward. No stopping until
I’m done with my life.”
DT: What’s your vision? How do you intend to continue making money?
PMJ: I have always been a consultant in my field which is advertising, design, digital media, because I’ve done it for so long. A lot of people in my industry were all colleagues. We can help each other. Now I can choose the projects; it’s much lighter. I could still work with the same professionals.
DT: You intend to earn from art?
PMJ: Absolutely. The point of this exercise is not just for my passion as an artist. That was my goal before. If I make money, great. If I don’t, so be it. Now, I have to focus on art that is not just uniquely mine but also shows a very matured and seasoned artist in the sense that I got the experience. I may not have the experience in the resumé, but as a person that has matured in design, I have now fully dedicated 2018 and beyond to show it. And I want to make the art not just for me but I need it also to make it work. I need to make it work with interior designers and architects. Possibly I will sell rights of the artwork to create merchandise, designs on walls and the reason why I say that is because the art I’m doing currently is very minimal and very geometric. They are not subject to a subject per se; you have to really look at it to understand it deeply. DT: So, where are you heading from here? PMJ: If you could look at my website, www.MarkusJentes. art, my work from before has completely evolved to something of what it is in the last few years and that’s where I’m heading today. The style I’m in now or what I’m really passionate about is abstract minimalism.