Budding Pride of Tanay

 

Essay 31. BUDDING PRIDE OF TANAY

By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol

Proud are the artist born and raised in the lakeshore towns of Angono, Binangonan, and Tanay, because three of the greatest names in Philippine painting - Botong Francisco, Enteng Manansala, and Tam Austria - hail from there. Also, two markedly distinct schools or styles of painting originated from the place: the Botong Francisco school with their curves and graceful lines and the Manansala school of transparent cubism with their angles and jagged planes. Tam Austria, who is from Tanay, belongs to Francisco's school, while MANUEL SINQUENCO, another Tanay native, leans more towards Manansala's transparent cubism.

Manuel Sinquengco was born on February 26, 1972 to Jaime Hucom Sinquenco, a master carpenter, and Lydia Buizon Samonte. The third of four children and the only boy, Sinquenco spent his grade school years at the Tanay Elementary School and high school at the Sierra Madre Institute. Sinquenco's family may be poor, but he is rich in artistic talent. Sensing the possibility of his son's earning a living through his art, the elder Sinquenco encouraged him in his artmaking. The boy Sinquenco thus diligently taught himself the rudiments of painting, hoping to make it big one day in the Philippine art scene.

After finishing high school, Sinquenco joined the Tanay Artist Group in 1990, and participated in the group's art exhibit, "Likhang Tanay". Sinquenco exhibited in that show realistic paintings of komiks, Philippine money, and old newspapers. Sinquenco's mentor then was the noted realist painter Jun Tiongco.  Sinquenco expanded his range two years later when he did a series of paintings of old houses on miniature canvases and calados - the lace embroidery designs on barong-tagalogs and Philippine tablecloths. These paintings had buyers all right, but they didn't fetch the prices Sincuenco wanted. The galleries he brought them to bought them cheap. 

A breakthrough occurred in Sincuenco's career when his entry to the 1998 Philippine Art Awards, "Sisikapin Ko", managed to be among the finalists. That propped up his confidence because the Philippine Art Awards is the most prestigious regular art competition in the Philippines.

Sinquenco held his first one-man show - "Deep Colors, Changing Hues, New Point of View" - in 2006, at the Philippine Heart Center. Sinquenco exhibited seventy-two still-lifes, landscapes, and abstracts in that show, which apparently were of disparate styles. It was Pipo Alcantara who advised Sinquenco that if he wants to make his mark he should find and create his own distinct or signature subject and style. Which Sinquenco did. 

From then on, Sinquenco focused mainly on painting overlapping images of old and modern houses of Tanay, set in milieus that are sometimes moonlit and sometimes sun-drenched, and whose lines and grids and transparent overlaid planes would place them within the ambit of cubism. 

Sinquenco's days as a struggling artist seem to be over. Because this series of paintings did find its market, and so caught the art-loving public's eyes that Sinquenco no longer has to sell his paintings cheap. Further proof of Sinquenco's budding prominence was his inclusion in Manny Duldulao's "The Art Collector's Guidebook". Another was the "Natatanging Pintor na Tagataguyod ng Sining" award given him by the BAKUSI Foundation.