AC Automotive champions Filipino artists at Art Fair PH 2018

AC AUTOMOTIVE tapped the creative minds of four Filipino visual artists at the Art Fair Philippines 2018 held last week at The Link, Ayala Center in Makati City. In support of Art Fair PH in its efforts to promote local contemporary art, AC Automotive was a prominent exhibitor during the four-day event.

AC Automotive is a member of the country’s oldest business house, Ayala, under its industrial technology arm, AC Industrials. It has four strong brands in Honda and Isuzu (dealership networks), Volkswagen (distribution) and KTM (manufacturing and distribution). It has nearly 30 years of industry experience and 24 wholly owned dealerships.

As the country’s pre-eminent automotive distribution and retail organization, AC Automotive presented today’s automotive architectural landscape through art pieces created by Filipino artists in multiple creative levels.

The four visual artists tapped— Reg Yuson for Honda, Dan Raralio for Isuzu, Art Lozano for Volkswagen, and Pete Jimenez for KTM— showcased their re-imaginations of contemporary automotive architecture by rendering and defining the “melding point” of science, art, machine, humanity and technology.

Sculptor Yuson’s “Fear or Desire” presented Honda as the perennial toy for speed enthusiasts, using the aggressive front fascia hood and grille of the new Civic to depict a full-scale toy model kit in a box, signifying the childlike, albeit ageless, appreciation to the Japanese marque.

Yuson’s work was a presence in the landscape of public built environments, lending fresh and witty concept in architecture of open space. And in recognition of his significant contributions to the expanding language and evolutionary dynamic of Philippine contemporary art, Yuson was conferred the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) Thirteen Artists Awardee in 2003.

Painter-sculptor Raralio’s “Abstract out of Concrete” assembled Isuzu truck parts embedded in concrete blocks, representing the artist’s creative fingerprint traversing the figurative to abstract, classical to modern, interspersed with subtle word play.

Raralio, also a CCP Thirteen Artists awardee (1988), has applied his expertise in both the academe and the corporate world.

Baguio native Lozano translated his 18-year love affair with the Volkswagen Beetle into a depiction of “Urban Progress,” a multi-hued 3-dimensional painting using an actual Beetle hood and parts of Volkswagen vehicles, capturing the tumultuous yet captivating process of industrious love being born.

A true-blue Ilocano and part of the Tam-awan Group of Artists in Baguio City, Lozano over the years has evolved by using the environment around him to reflect on his canvas. And for this masterpiece that used just a few vehicle parts, Lozano evoked the fluid, overwhelming hustle and bustle of human progress in the time of rigid metal.

Jimenez’s “Racing Heart” focused on the KTM big bike’s orange frame, pounding it into the shape of a heart, and encasing motorcycle parts into it—the sculptor’s visual gem of a pun.

Jimenez, who has put up 16 solo exhibitions in the Philippines since 2000, and has joined several group exhibitions abroad, is among the few Filipino sculptors who have consistently explored the qualities of scrap iron as a medium.

For more information about the AC Automotive companies, log on to Hondamakati.com.ph, Isuzuautodealer. com.ph, Volkswagen.com.ph and Ktm.ph.