The art of dyeing

From virtually out of the blue came an e-mail from the Bicol-based artist Dante Perez, about his ongoing show at the Blind Tiger along Visayas Avenue, entitled The Art of Dyeing. The show opened on a Sunday, Nov. 18, a first for the art gallery cum bar, which usually opens its exhibits on a Saturday. It runs through Dec. 14.

Now, it’s a good thing Perez is back and painting again, after several years in the salt mines abroad building up a war chest, in Singapore newspapers in particular, to afford him the luxury to come home and just paint. And so, the art of dyeing it is, a pun on the old George Harrison song from the All Things Must Pass album.

But let’s hear from the artist himself:

"This exhibition aims to show a collection of my important selected works. A result of life-long, dedicated experimentation in colors, images and textures. I have also included a few old works that represent a particular genre, influences, settings and consciousness. This exhibit would somehow reveal my progress or decadence."

It’s another good excuse to visit Blind Tiger, which has also held shows of Perez’s contemporaries, more or less, like Roxlee, Yeye Calderon, and Benjie Lontok, not to mention Jose Tence Ruiz. Like Ruiz, Perez also spent time in the Singapore Straits Times, where to this day Pinoy artists and illustrators Dengcoy Miel (formerly of The Philippine STAR) and Ludwig Ilio are.

"My constant craving for change, keeping up with the latest trends, makes my life more miserable. My desire is to achieve and master a pure style I can proudly claim my own and become famous but then I might quit painting because I don’t want to end up in an Alaska milk TV commercial."

For a while in the ’80s, Perez was art director for the renegade Jingle magazine, right alongside Eric Gamalinda, who at the time was running things at editorial. Then, after the EDSA revolt, he found himself at New Day magazine with Lea Makabenta, Art "Isaac Hayes" Dialogo, and ominous artist Ramir Narca. It was at New Day where he sort of revolutionized graphics design, much like Ermita magazine before it, though this time with some help from the likes of Arnel Agawin (where is he now?).

"Pursuing a childhood ambition is always a lucrative option – to become a used car salesman, or die like a hero in a videoke bar brawl."

It might have been during one of those interminable drinking sessions when he suggested that he would one day like to form a band called Dante Perez and the Bus Drivers. Maybe to play on the same bill as Richie Yu and the Heavenly Kwang Chow Beef Band, somewhere in the backstreets of Binondo, a stone’s throw away from Tan Lung’s House of Ill-Repute….

"My works are not meant to be understood nor reflect some religious, socio-political rubbish and definitely not intended to inspire. My art represents nothing. Its meaning is beyond me. Beyond the surface. My apologies to Andy W."

Back in the ’80s again, Perez was with the group of artists that participated in the show of the Philippine Literary Arts Council at the Pinaglabanan Galleries. Perez, Ilio, Lee, Lontok and Luna Sicat interacted with the poets in a couple of Chromatext shows that captured the imagination of the art scene then. They were known as the Obscenarists.

Also in that same decade the artist once sat in the back row, trying his best to keep a straight face, during a forum on humor at the UP Manila that had as panelists Gary Lising and the late Kitch Ortego, and featured the animated films of Roxlee.

In the ’90s he was mostly in Singapore earning his keep, but at the same time wrestling to keep the art alive, or at least the art of dyeing alive.

Now he seems to have settled down in Albay, with a good view of Mayon Volcano, fairly domesticated but still not wanting to be part of any milk commercial.

In the mail too he had sent – how shall we describe it – a work, a sample on what looked like handmade paper, a dyed image of a cow and some brown background, like spilled gravy. Entitled "I Know What You Are Thinking," it is mixed media on coupon bond-sized paper.

The rather frameable piece could well be a representative sample from the artist’s extensive history of vegetarianism, and can serve as a conscience to hearty eaters during the holiday season, especially those fond of roasted calf and other juicy viands.

Whichever’s the case, mad cow or no mad cow, Blind Tiger plays host to the works of another compelling artist known for his streetwise black humor, on the far side of the absurd and surreal.