Achromatic Women

 

Essay 8. ACHROMATIC WOMEN

(Exhibition Notes for Michael Adams Nacianceno's 2015 solo art exhibit at the Artologist Gallery)

By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol

Painters who thrive on monochrome are 'rarae aves'---rare birds. They are unusual individuals, whose self-imposed limitation on their use of color set them apart in a Philippine art scene where colorful artworks seem to be the norm.

Lao Lian Ben is an outstanding example. Lao, throughout his painting career never betrayed his fidelity to black and white. And with good results, too, because his paintings can easily command six figure price tags nowadays.

Now comes Michael Adams Nacianceno, a twenty-two year old Fine Arts student from TUP (Technological University of the Philippines). He will open with Francis Arnaez their two-man show on April 18, at the Artologist Gallery. Entitled "Stillness Hours", the show, by its very title, promises to be not your usual run-of-the-mill art exhibit.

Stillness Hours refer to the period when a state of calm suffuses an artist engaged in the act of creation, when time seems suspended, and all that exist in the artist's immediate milieu is himself and his tools for art making. Nacianceno and Arnaez also appended to the main title subtitles personal to each of them, which further hinted of the state of isolation each artist underwent in coming up with their collection.

Nacianceno gave his suite of paintings the title "Amid the Primal Things", which implies a commentary on his haunts and a probing of things there, and also perhaps of the psyche, to its roots.

If his works, both past and present, are any indication, we can easily conclude that Nacianceno is enamored with women---to the point of obsession.  His fascination with them, though, doesn't seem to have any erotic implication. Nacianceno only paints extreme close-ups of women's faces, never their bodies. While the face itself is rendered poster-style in the manner of the pop artists, the hair and background adornments, done in acrylic, and brush and ink, evoke memories of the Jugendstil or Art Nouveau.

Nacianceno's paintings, although belonging to the figurative school, also hovers somewhat at the edge of abstraction. His penchant for utilizing Pollock's drip-and-splatter technique marks him as a quasi-abstract expressionist..

But Nacianceno didn't stop at just depicting the mere physicality of the women's faces. The titles he gave to his old pieces, like "Mood Swing", "Exile in an Uncertain Future", and "Muted Gray", provided the profundity that elevated his paintings to visual poetry, and allowed us the means to decipher for ourselves the meaning hidden in each work.

But why the fixation with black and white?  Nacianceno has a ready, though roundabout, explanation for this. He said that he uses only black and white because he wants to prove that these non-colors are also capable of evoking a sensation of colors. Nacianceno wants his viewers to feel, not see, the colors suggested by his artworks. By color, he  refers not to the hues literally, but to the emotion, drama, and conflict that are part and parcel of really profound works.

Nacianceno will, in time, belong to that illustrious roster of TUP graduates who are now making waves, not only in the Philippine art scene, but also abroad. This roster includes Lynyrd Paras, Mark Andy Garcia, Froilan Calayag, and Dex Fernandez. These four, though proponents of radically different styles, all exhibited early in their career the same tendency to be icon-smashers, flaunting their irreverence all around, and yet still earned for themselves the kudos that the truly gifted deserve.

Nacianceno is almost there. All he needs to do to be deemed a peer of the four is for him to continue on polishing his craft, and also perhaps to be consistently loyal to his palette--- like Lao. Nacianceno's and Lao's paintings are achromatic, yes---but it doesn't mean that they are colorless.