One of the most challenging exhibits to curate is a portrait show. For unless the subjects are known to the viewing public, the exhibit is bound for boresville. This primarily explains the paucity of exhibits dealing with such concern.
But hurrah! There is an ongoing exhibit at the Corredor in the UP College of Fine Arts that, pardon the pun, squarely faces the challenge.
A total of 23 student artists taking painting courses under Professors Rey Concepción and Marc Malto have pooled their acts together to mount Self-Image, the title of the show, and which can roughly be described as an exhibition of more than life-size psychological self-portraits.
The exhibiting artists are Aes Arcilla, Mike Banting, Dahlia Lara Barcelona, Lyle Buencamino, Odette Cagandahan, One Clemente, Xandi Eleazar, Ann Cecil Evora, Gretchen Flores, Humphrey Gorriceta, Samantha Gungon, Garon Honasan, Ren Javier, Ona Lapitan, Carl Loquias, Mervin Malonzo, Oliver Montevirgen, Martin Pagulayan, Lenie Pangilinan, Mac Pasco, Hanna Pettyjohn, Ian Quirante and Bojok Rodriguez.
Each of the artists presents an auto rittrato on a 6x3 ft. pictorial plane. As installed in the gallery walls one after the other, the works owing to their vertical orientation, look like a series of lancet windows of a Gothic cathedral minus the spires. It reminds me of an exhibit I saw in a Chelsea gallery in New York many years ago featuring 100 paintings of Andy Warhol, all in one size, and connected together, edge to edge, such that the paintings practically covered the entire wall area of the gallery.
As installed in the Corredor, the curatorial design of May Lyn Cruz breathes into the exhibition a quietness where the paintings are allowed to converse with the viewers in all their full glory. All works are wall-bound, except for two, which are laid on the floor.
Why then self-portrait?
This can be best answered by another question: Who knows the artist better than himself?
To quote Concepción, "Resemblance is a usual norm in rendering the image of the subject of a portrait. The essence of the sitter, however, is seldom captured by the artist. This is true most especially when the artist does not know the sitter personally. The final work, therefore, is a mere reflection and not reflective of the sitter."
For the exhibition, the student artists capture on canvas the very essence of their personality that only they can fully articulate visually. As a result, the chosen media and techniques are as varied as there are 23 equally unique artists in the show.
It comes very refreshing that a portrait show such as Self-Image is able to present a diversity of concerns that include among others, gender in art, issues of duality, religion, fear and anxiety.
Through a plethora of personal symbols and bric-a-bracs, the participating artists paint not mere representations, but reflections of themselves.
The best way to look at the works is to hear the artists talk about them. Listen to some of them:
Mervin Malonzo: This particular work is a highly personal one. It shows the artist in a painful yet somewhat blissful guise with a gush of blood flowing from his torso. It represents the pain of the past that was experienced by the artist. Therapeutically, the artist uses his art to get over with this pain through this painting much like a snake shedding its skin.
Humphrey Gorriceta: In my work is a mixed media on canvas. My work is a diptych representing different aspects of personality. The two panels represent my homosexual orientation. When looking at the painting, the right canvas characterizes the male aspect of my persona while the other section symbolizes the feminine traits of my personality. I wanted to represent my transparent personality through this manner. The manipulation of leaves in my work proved to be ideal for the reason that I have traits that are similar to that of leaves… I am a very spontaneous person; somehow, I have a volatile yet predictable personality. Like a leaf changing its color as the season turns, my moods and interest vary as situations and circumstances move.
Martin Pagulayan: I have utilized opposite elements such as the complementary tandem of yellow and violet and placing a voluminous figure against a flat background. I also used the rough texture present on the figure’s surface contrasting with the smooth nature of the background… My work fairly represents me for I myself embody two opposing behaviors. I could be sometimes floating with extreme joy and happiness and without even knowing it, I just suddenly find myself drowning with so much anger, grief and sadness… Considering that all of these opposing elements are present in a single composition, they don’t actually create a conflicting atmosphere. In fact, they produce harmony and balance, being able to perceive them not as separate components but completely recognizing them as a whole.
Hanna Pettyjohn: When I started my portrait I had just finished reading the book Sputnik Sweetheart by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. I found it captured something very personal to me, I have always had a fear of choices not taken. This book is about a girl whose impossible love for a woman years older became possible. This inspired me so much that it is what I choose to make as my painting about. A choice that I find impossible to make yet wish so hard I could. This is why I painted an image of myself and my Doppelganger representing the "want" – splitting myself in two, my doppelganger becoming everything I cannot be.
Bojok Rodriguez: My composition is surreal because I see myself beyond the human flesh, and so I decided to depict my inner self. I wanted to show my skin peeling off. Majority of the outermost layer, which is the roughest and which resembles the texture of the mirror’s frame, has been shed off… The certificates and other documents that represent my past (background) are literally embedded in the background and in some parts of my body. They are hardly visible from afar as my achievements are not obvious and are only revealed upon close scrutiny. I encased my innermost being inside the ambiguous mirror because for me it is intangible and cannot be grasped; one’s contact with it can only be superficial…Finally, the background of clouds in the sky is symbolic of the heaven or the afterlife, where I see my true identity/being to be heading.
Ona Lapitan: My main idea for this plate is to visualize my own wedding because it is one of my greatest fears in life… I just cannot envision myself getting married because I fear that it just won’t last… I am happy being single. The wedding ring is on my left pinky finger because I consider it as the least of my priorities in life. The ring has five diamond stones on it because I believe that good marriages do not even last for seven years… Red roses in my hands are symbols of love because I believe in it (love) but not in marriage. I used denim as my support, oil pastel as my medium and sequins and glue sticks as ornaments.
Mike Banting: I decided to use latex as my primary medium… For the top part (the t-shirt), clay was used to act as "borders" to contain the paint as it is poured onto the surface… For the lower part (the pants), I mixed water with latex and blue paint to create the marble-like pattern. To speed up the drying process, calcimine was applied, also giving it added texture… I see myself as a very simple person, with the same ups and downs as most people have. There is nothing that mysterious about my personality, other than the fact that I try to be mysterious in some ways (I fail that miserably)…The mixed up portion of the pants is probably my subconscious state. It’s hard to notice but sometimes my personality changes from time to time… The lines are very simple, having some childlike quality. Maybe because I prefer to have a positive outlook on life instead of being so negative all the time. However, I do get pessimistic… Guess it’s a part of my not so simple "personality."
Lyle Buencamino: Fundamentally a collage of symbols, this painting is a chronicle of more immediate obstacles and philosophical insights on my direction as an artist. The artist stands naked as a symbol of objective self-evaluation. The contra posto is sarcastically illustrating nothing except a preoccupation with design. The left arm is implied to have been severed and the right hand is stained with paint and playing a note on the piano representing a hypothetical situation that if my arm were actually severed, I’d still be a better painter than if I were to pursue music theory and by having only one finger on just one key is also representational of my knowledge in that art form.…
Ian Quirante: The painting is a linear composition, you can see overlapping lines, illusion of space and depth, the shifting of a flat image to volumetric with opaque and wash colors giving weight to the composition.
The painting is about how I see myself as an artist, what inspires me, how I come up with ideas and fusing them to create new ones.