Monterona’s mural in Manitoba

It was an accidental meeting I had with Bert Monterona three years ago at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Filipino friends had alerted me to the opening of his exhibit of tapestry paintings at the UBC Institute of Asian Research, billed as “Magnifying Mindanao: A Monterona Art Exhibition.”

Our family had planned to have a look-around at the university on that very day, so we dropped in at the show opening, not the least to check if pancit canton would be on the buffet table during cocktails.

Upon introduction, I was pleased to learn that Bert had known my bosom buddy Santi Bose, who had just passed away. Santi had involved himself in art community workshops in our deep South. Bert was based in Davao City, and had served as the Mindanao Coordinator for the National Commission for Culture & the Arts (NCCA) from 1996 to 2001.

In 2002 he led a group of Mindanao artists on a workshop grant and brought their art to Canada. As I eventually wrote for this space late that year, Bert Monterona had stayed on in Vancouver. He was attracted by the possibility of sharing (and enhancing) his art experience with both Western artists and the distinguished lot that represented the First Nation communities.

I wrote on Bert’s art exhibit not because there was, indeed, pancit canton, even fresh lumpia, on the buffet table that evening we met, but because I was genuinely impressed, nay, astounded, by his large wall hangings with their glorious bursts of tropical colors and intricate mélange of familiar, indigenous forms. The loose canvases appeared to be a cross between bark and tough cloth, with horizontal edges framed with vine or unraveling into wild tassels.

I also wrote then: “Indeed, tribal Mindanao had crossed the Pacific. Bert Monterona represents to the full the Filipino artist at home abroad, or anywhere he can find material/s and inspiration to indulge his superlative talents. It is as if these outstanding artists carry with them inexhaustible personal founts of ideas which, attended by excellent craft and a view to stay true to the ‘globalized self,’ set fire to increasingly appreciative parts of the known world.”

Bert returned to Davao in 2003, and we communicated for a time. To my surprise, he eventually found a way to have a friend handcarry a large, rolled-up tapestry to Manila for delivery at my front door. It essayed scenes from my first novel, Great Philippine Jungle Energy Cafe, on which he had evidently conducted research. 

Another common friend turned out to be the premier poet Ricky de Ungria, then the Chancellor of UP in Mindanao, who confirmed that Bert had gained much respect and admiration in Davao for the excellence of his art as well as his abiding commitment to help build a culture of peace in the region.

Bert immersed himself among indigenous groups, shared his expertise with them while drawing from their icons and motifs for his own art. As an artist-educator, he organized workshops in schools and communities, focusing on skills development, art-as-therapy, and peace-building.

His social development advocacy work for NGOs in Mindanao helped establish Peacebuilding and the Arts as a summer course offered by the Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute (MPI) in Davao City, drawing participation from different Asian countries.

Yet another common friend in Davao was the poet-artist Tita Lacambra Ayala, who wrote of Monterona in the laudable Road Map Series of publications she produced:

“Bert Monterona is one of the few serious artists of Mindanao who has transformed art as an avocation into that of a profession by sheer dint of practice and experimentation. In the spirit of the scholar doing research among his people and delving into the ethnic arts and cultural antiquities, he hit upon the idea of using materials that are cheaply and easily available to the local artist.

“His bamboo stick paintings are made with the use of locally-made textile paint applied on the cheapest material — chipboard.... (T)extile paint is applied on chipboard using different shapes of flat bamboo sticks as palette and brush.

“... The finished pieces are brilliant and glossy. The heavy noodle-like lines produce a sense of solidity even to the atmosphere surrounding the subjects of the paintings, expressing with naïve lines the tedium of rustic life as against the pretty postcard rusticity usually prevalent in paintings, especially of an older era.”

Of his tapestry paintings, international art critic Carol Forbes wrote: “Created from dye, textile paint and acrylic, the tapestries look and feel like hand-woven cloths and artifacts from South East Asia’s past.”

Bert explicates on this genre thus: “The bark-like tapestries is a technique I developed using dye and textile paint instead of the usual stretched canvas. This is an expression of my adherence to indigenous forms, which complement the subject and theme of my artwork. I want to achieve the effect that when viewed, the entire surface has the feel and look of figures emerging from South East Asian handwoven cloth and figures.”

We lost touch a couple of years ago when Bert returned to Vancouver. Only recently, however, I was delighted to receive communication from him regarding his recent achievements.

In Vancouver, he held an exhibit early this year at the Maple Ridge Art Gallery, titled “Vision & Hope for Justice and Peace.”

Late last year, Bert also responded to a call for entries to the prestigious Mural Fest 2007 contest organized by Graffiti Art Programming, Inc. in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The internationally juried competition that started in 1998 promised substantial prizes for five winners that would emerge from among international competitors.

The selected murals would be painted on-site, with ink medium on vinyl canvas, at approximately 40 feet by 25 feet in size. They would be mounted on prominent buildings in and around downtown Winnipeg, and stay up for two years before being taken on a tour of other Canadian cities. A symposium would also involve the winning muralists in the summer of 2007, with each finalist receiving 8,000 Canadian dollars to produce the approved vinyl murals over a one-month period starting in July.

Eighty submissions were received, from as far away as Chile, Spain and Australia. Adjudged as the five finalists or winners were Jesse Reno of Portland, Oregon; Cyrus Smith of Winnipeg; Marco Scargato of Belgium; Ian August of Winnipeg; and Bert Monterona of Vancouver, British Columbia.

Bert has just made Mindanao, and all Filipinos, proud over his latest triumph. His winning mural is titled “Women for Peace and Environment.” On this he writes:

“Peace and environmental issues are everybody’s concern. When there is peace there is unity and understanding among communities of diverse cultures, faiths, races and colors. This work of art makes a call for all women and men of goodwill to take responsibility for sustaining life as well as environmental protection, and to prevent war and build a culture of peace.”  

I recall that in the UBC exhibit opening where I first laid eyes on Bert Monterona’s stunning tapestry paintings, two of the speakers were Sneja Gunew, director of the UBC Center for Research on Women’s Studies and Gender Relations, and Wendy Frisby, chair of the UBC Women’s Studies Program.

Another art reviewer, Alan Haig-Brown, has extolled the very same virtues that women’s studies specialists hail in Monterona’s work:

“He avoids the simple traps of ‘honoring’ women that generations of Western artists have fallen into, from the sweet Madonnas of the Renaissance to contemporary artists’ nudes that seek to make women some exemplary but unattainable earth mother or sexual goddess. Bert shows women carrying the tools of their trade, from cooking pots to millinery shears, walking across a tightrope in a tenuous attempt to reach some stage where respect will reward them for their perseverance if not for their reality.”

Indeed, Bert Monterona has been the compleat artist, who also functions selflessly as an educator and cultural activist. His national and international success has included prizes and grants from the Australia Council for the Arts, Asian Artists Awards of Vermont Studio Center in the USA, Philip Morris Group of Companies ASEAN Art Awards, GSIS Museum Artist of the Month, and Art Association of the Philippines Best Entry Award. He has had major solo exhibitions in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Australia, the USA and Canada.

Now his mural on women, peace and the environment attracts viewers in Winnipeg, halfway around the world from Davao, and tells everyone that our artists are not only gifted gentlemen but also first-class, first-world, first-universe peace builders.