V for Ventura
May 30, 2006 | 12:00am
Something Kafkaesque happened to Ronald Ventura on his way to Sydney, Australia for his exhibit at the Cross Art Projects, a leading contemporary art space in Kings Cross. Since the artist brought paintings on canvases with wooden frames, he had to stay in the quarantine area of the Sydney Airport. (Australia is very strict with regard to these matters; wooden articles must be checked first for termites and such before being allowed into the country). And for some reason, Ventura lost his invite from the Aussie gallery. But after the few anxious hours, he was able to go way into the great Sydney cityscape: riding a train and a cab, looking for his hotel, relying on road and street signs along the way.
As a result of Ronald Ventura’s trip to Australia, the artist has created paintings as signposts, artworks marking the existential traffic that flows in his head while finding himself in a country that is both strange and familiar at the same time.
"Cross Encounters," on view until July 21 at the Ateneo Art Gallery, features the recent artworks of Ventura who was one of the winners of the 2005 Ateneo Art Awards. The artist was chosen as the inaugural recipient of the Ateneo Art Gallery Sydney Studio Residency Grant.
Ateneo Art Gallery curator and Philippine STAR columnist Richie Lerma said Ventura’s "Human Study" exhibit in Australia earned good reviews. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, impressive technique alone can quickly get boring if it was done for technique’s sake. Something akin to technical self-pleasuring. "(But) Ventura backs up his skills with challenging imagery and ideas," wrote art critic Sunanda Creagh. "His latest exhibition, ‘Human Study,’ forces us to engage with gender roles, our fears of entrapment and our supposed superiority over animals."
Also, Ventura was able to view for the first time landmark opuses by Titian, Rembrandt and Francis Bacon, as well as David Medalla’s revolutionary bubble machine at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne (which was on loan from New Zealand’s Auckland City Art Gallery). That was Ventura’s brush with the transcendent. But the seemingly mundane can also yield astounding artworks.
His daily walks in Kings Cross resulted in a painting titled "Nightwalk (Darlinghurst)," which portrays a naked woman wearing fascistic boots and a black-and-yellow pedestrian sign covering her face. What’s interesting about Ventura’s exhibit at the Ateneo is how Australia (its continent of colors and images) maps itself out in the artist’s latest works, fusing with his stock of white, corpse-colored figures of jarring, subversive beauty.
According to Lerma, it is interesting how Ronald’s trip to Australia has given him a new way of looking at things, a new approach to his art. ("The exhibit is a great way to open this year’s Ateneo Art Awards," Lerma adds.) New colors and images pop up in Ventura’s pieces in "Cross Encounters."
A half-man/half-airplane is portrayed flying (or, more precisely, fleeing) in "Memory of Flight." An Oz-type road sign warns of a penitent crossing. (Dig the humor or the irony in the piece: flagellants getting their own convenient lane as they follow Jesus’ road.) Black-and-yellow fiberglass-resin dog sculptures signify caution. Reminds us of the barok sign "Beware of Dog" we see everywhere in suburban gates in Manila. Fiberglass-resin canine soldiers in "Dog Club" – in superheroes-for-rent poses – suggest a world that has gone to the dogs. Like toys by Mattel, you get an urge to "collect them all." And in an astounding painting called "Heat," Ventura depicted a man with a dog’s head sitting coolly on a fire hydrant while visions of Old Manila go up in flames. Like William Butler Yeats, seeing mere anarchy loosed upon the world? Well, Ventura also created a yellow riot shield with a vicious dog facing the viewer menacingly. The artist constructed this symbol of power and control during the spate of rallies in Metro Manila in recent months.
Thus, Aussie emblems meet the fixations of a Filipino artist with an astounding draftsmanship and a cache of dark visions that are shocking and seductive at the same time.
(Ventura) has this dark view of humanity," concluded Lerma, "but it’s a valid view just the same."
A prophet of doom can be man’s best friend.
In "Flat Reality," on view at the SM Megamall Art Center until June 7, the artist presents paintings of children, clowns, bears, toys, and a few of kids’ favorite things. His colors scream pop and his subjects inhabit a world of play and pretend. But what is interesting about Olan’s latest pieces are his non-ironic use of cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam, the Seven Dwarves, Mickey Mouse and Cinderella’s rat posse.
"I wanted to present children’s innocent way of looking at the world," Olan explained. "We adults are riddled with so much baggage and limitations, and we end up lying about ourselves and the world."
The show is also his meditation on the two-dimensional version of reality as depicted in cartoons. "These paintings are about the flat world, where everything is fun and creative," Olan says.
In "Fun Fever," the artist painted a kid with a high fever lying on a cloud-bed with toy airplanes whirring around. How about those cute cuddly bears in round canvases? Or those quirky clowns who, according to Olan, are the adults who can best relate to kids. But there is also trouble in fun-land as attested in Olan’s "Pediophobia," where a kid fears molestation from a giant teddy bear. Absurdity rules in "Never Ending," as a young Cinderella sits on a giant shoe her foot will never grow into.
As a summation, Olan Ventura’s cavalcade of cartoon heroes is his way of saying innocence is underrated. No dark dirges in majority of Olan’s paintings. Only merry melodies.
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