MANILA, Philippines - The major entries of the “My Bullish Art” competition presented by The Philippine STAR and Swatch were so numerous and varied that it was decided to come up with a second installment of the works. Clearly, the young artists who participated had an inexhaustible reservoir of novel ideas about the Year of the Ox.
As noted in last week’s article, a number of the entries used found objects like paddles, shoes, and a flat iron while others used more conventional materials like wire. An outstanding mixed media work was that of Rhod Wilson Quilino where the bull is depicted as a timepiece. Some submissions were quite playful: Ronald Jeresano shows a child with a hat of horns; Rudolf Serrano’s colorful entry would have been at home in a delightful children’s book, while Philip Flores’ is actually a joke about the art world in the form of a comic strip.
While creations like Sam Penaso’s “Invisi-bull” and Roger Tingle’s pastoral photograph carried an easily recognizable image of the ox (or the carabao), other artists were more subtle. John Michael Macariola presented an image of a man who has a hole for a stomach. This may suggest that the subject is the victim of a violent encounter with the bovine. Lawrence Memije’s painting of a woman serenading a pair of chairs is equally puzzling. The only reference to the competition’s mascot is the fact that the chairs both bear twin protuberances.
Over-all, the competition proves that with regard to creative output, the budding Filipino artists always hit the mark. Or as they say in the sporting world: Bulls eye!