The continuing advocacy for the art of fine print of Raul Isidro, who harnesses indefatigably the efforts of the Philippine Association of Printmakers (PAP) towards this end, is a luminous case. The PAP, which Isidro leads as president, has taken on the chivalrous spirit of bringing prints to a larger audience base by conducting printmaking workshops gratis et amore, to accompany its traveling art show nationwide.
The PAP puts forth efforts that instill awareness for the exceptional quality of prints, hopeful that contemporary collectors give prints the look that they deserve and that museums run aggressive programs on collecting prints. Print, after all, if it has to remain true to its nature, is every person’s art.
In recognition of these seminal efforts of Isidro for the art of print, the Corredor of the UP College of Fine Arts (UPCFA) invited Isidro to showcase his works on campus. The exhibition, billed cryptically as Prints, breaks tradition. Isidro becomes the first Filipino artist not bred in UP to exhibit in the eight-year-old gallery.
Isidro and the UPCFA share the same sentiments regarding the art of print. Printmaking had been a consistent part of the college as early as 1915. Engraving courses and entaglio have since been offered – with Henry Levy, a French artist, handling the courses early in the life of the College. Recent efforts of the college have consistently upheld the medium through workshops geared for both students and practicing artists. Some of these are even facilitated by visiting professors, like those conducted by another French artist Jean Marc Scanreigh who teaches printmaking at the École de Beaux Arts in Lyon. As Isidro would observe, the UPCFA has one of the biggest and better-equipped Print Shops in the country.
Featured in the exhibit are 24 mono-prints done by Isidro from 2001 to the present. They are works on paper, all vertically oriented, except for one horizontal format "Banca." Isidro’s works make use of locally available material, instantly debunking the popular notion that one needs to resort to imported materials to create a masterpiece.
As mono-prints, they are all 1/1. They reflect the suave approach Isidro has to printmaking. They are testimonies to Isidro’s flair for the commonplace. His keen eye transforms the banal to the transcendent. The appeal is largely achieved by the colors Isidro hand applies to the prints and thus affirms the enhancive property of colors in crafting images.
While the images Isidro incorporates in his compositions are non-representational, they too inform the viewers of the artist’s intentions and proclivity to dwell and explore un-chartered territories surrounding and lingering in the past. The titles of his prints – "Relics," "Fossils," "Icons," "Minerals," "Ancestral Pasts," "Lost Continents," etc. – provide these hints. For Isidro, these clues continue to shed light on man’s continuing search for significant existence, if not the great mysteries that surround life.
Isidro brings to the gallery an art career of admirable distinction. A notable printmaker and painter, he was recipient of the 1997 Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan Award during the Araw ng Maynila celebrations, the 1979 Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Philippines (Fine Arts) and the grand award and first prize during the 1972 Printmakers Association of the Philippines (PAP) Annual Art Competition.
He is also distinguished cross-culturally, as evidenced by the Cultural Grant Award from the Australian Government in 1981 and his past and recent exhibits in China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain and the USA.
Isidro was president of the Art Association of the Philippines in 1983.
The invitation of UP also recognizes Isidro as, aside from being a topnotch artist, a high-caliber educator. He once headed the fine arts department of the Philippine Women’s University, way back in 1975.
As part of the ongoing exhibit at the Corredor, Isidro conducted a workshop for students and art aficionados. On hand to assist him were Bernard Temporosa and Gerry Navillon.
The workshop that Isidro conducted – if attendance of students is an indication – reflects the popular following printmaking enjoys, as well as the respect the students hold for the medium.
Speaking candidly and generously about his techniques in printmaking, he however commands respect – as any mentor would extract from his pupils, in this case, his audience.
Isidro’s easy way with printmaking does not rely anymore on the traditional metal plates (zinc, copper), or rubber and wood plates. But simply on anything, primarily paper, both as plate and ground. On the table are bits and pieces of paper – in a variety of thickness, some are wet, some are dry, some are pressed, and some are crumpled.
Isidro advises the students to apply the right amount of pressure to the plates, so as not to have a bad print. He reminds them of the right kinds of paper to use, enjoining them to make sure these are wet – to allow the machine to pick up colors and transfer them on paper. He also stresses the need to always take heed of the color wheel, so as to bring harmony in the colors and to never make the texture of the surface thicker than 1/8 of an inch.
Ink rollers, he says, are quite expensive and by way of gently admonishing the students, he emphasized the responsibility of the artists to always clean them after use.
He advises artists not to punish themselves when making art, a rebuke of the widely perceived observation that printmaking is rigid and confining. Every artist should enjoy what he does, but not to forsake discipline in pursuit of art.
He debunks that prints are only handsome in black and white editions. Each Isidro bursts in wild colors or yellows, reds, greens, oranges and blues. Although the artist creates images that are non-objective in mode not suggestive of any familiar associations, the overall appeal is cheerful and merry.
Isidro earned his BFA major in advertising at the University of Santo Tomas in 1965, his post-graduate studies in painting at the PWU in Manila in 1966 and advance art courses at the Sonoma Community College in California, USA in 1985.