WHAT’S YOUR ARTWORK FOR?
Social realist painters bloom on paper
By he social realist artists, who raged using socio-historically conscious images in the ‘70s and ‘80s, have morphed into three groups after more than four decades. And they showed their true colors at the group show “Anong Papel Mo?” which recently opened at the Art Cube at Glorietta 4, Makati, to be on view until May 18. This is the third installment in the Papelismo series, a movement of art making on paper among socially and historically-inclined artists, established by
Its first group show of five artists, entitled “Papelismo,” was held in 2012 while the second show, “Papel Mismo” opened in 2014.
Portraits of ordinary and people done by
and and the portrayal of the ruling elite and powerful countries by
represented one group: the artists that have remained indomitable in portraying classic class consciousness in canvas. The lyrical, metaphorical, and self-referred personal mythologies now found in the artworks of
oppressed white pastel portraits on brown paper of overseas Filipina worker
with veil, are current event-inspired, showing that a painting can be a platform for truth-seeking and compassion. “Doing a portrait is to personally understand and seek the truth about the image. Hence, Veloso’s veil,” says Fernandez.
Delotavo’s large watercolor portrait entitled, underlined his philosophy. “For me, making portraits of ordinary people is an artistic choice. I am not very religious, but I see God in the faces of the ordinary men and women that I paint on canvas. I don’t have a political agenda. Members of the ruling elite buy my paintings. When my paintings are on their walls, they are reminded of their cooks, domestic helpers, and drivers. For me, art buyers are temporary custodians. In time, when they donate my artworks to museums, people will see what I see, and will understand that I paint with my conscience,” he explains.
Habulan’s a pen and ink depiction of a face and a large hand struggling through an inner layer of locally woven cloth and a heavy mantle of oppressive material “that looks western,” is about slow birth or metaphysical transcendence from colonialism, death, and oppression. “I can paint poverty or oppression with a royal look, or depict clashes with mannered intensity. That is also my contradiction,” says the artist who has learned to portray clashes not with blood and consuming anger, but with consummate poetic symbols.
Known for his powerful, and riveting portrayals of class struggle in the past, Baens-Santos creates two-painting series “Demons and Angels” for the exhibit, which depicts festive and colorful cityscapes of roads and vehicles contrasted with dark, demonic shadows that look like artifacts of a damaged culture. His two-eyed canvas reflects his sudden shift to depicting a guerillalike turmoil. “One cannot always depict class struggle without looking at one’s own evils,” says Baens-Santos.
Painter-photographer and cartoon commentator Zulueta, who returned to the Philippines to rediscover his artistic roots, has been depicting alienation, ambivalence, and exile in his recent works. His depicts a man’s body engraved in stone that aims to float and overcome thin rectangular lines that surround him.
was done in New Zealand in 2003. Self-examination is dangerous. Overcoming it helps one to understand other people. But when I depict poverty on canvas, I tend to distance myself, the way I do when I take photos,” he says.
Doloricon’s four, colorful abstract, acrylic-mono-prints on embossed Arches paper reflect his license to change his style: “I have made angry murals; hardcore, socially conscious paintings; illustrations for comic books; and IT-aided artworks. I keep experimenting with forms, including abstraction—my style at the moment.”