Passion for Facades

 

Essay 26. PASSION FOR FACADES

By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol

Just when I thought of motifs of Spanish-era houses as already 'squeezed dry' by artists, along came ARIS CARANDANG with his novel low-relief re-creations of their facades.

It was Lino Severino who popularized paintings of old houses in the 1970s. Severino's works have an abstract feel to them, especially the close-up images of facades, with their straight lines and nearly flat planes. Many imitators who are excellent artists themselves followed his lead. 

But a deviation in technique and form occurred when Danny Pangan tackled the theme. Pangan departed from the usual depictions in paint of the old houses in full view and did instead three-dimensional (3D) interior scenes showing windows with carved wood adornments atop them. Carandang's innovation, in turn, was to do the reverse of Pangan's interior scenes. The carved wood embellishments are still.there, but they no longer adorn the interior of the house. Instead, Carandang's pieces, which he dubbed collectively as 'Obra ni Carandang', are framed 3D-depictions of exteriors of houses.

Aristotle E. Carandang was born at Barangay Lumangbayan, Plaridel, Bulacan on March 15, 1977. He was called to the priesthood and entered the Immaculate Conception Major Seminary in Tabe, Guiguinto, Bulacan, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Classical Philosophy. However, after graduation, Carandang decided not to pursue his studies for what he calls 'priestly formation'. He said he left the seminary to explore more about life, which led him to his present career as a visual artist. He found the arts so much to his liking that he consider his shift to it fortunate, because for him, doing art is just a new way of inspiring others "especially in this time of the pandemic".

But before pursuing art, Carandang worked first at the office of the Mayor of Plaridel. He was also a Guidance Counselor once at the Saint Paul College of San Rafael, and later on a technical support call center agent. He also do volunteer work for the church.

The urge to become an artist was kindled during his seminary days, where his talent for singing, acting, and the visual arts was honed to the fullest. So, it was there at the seminary when the muse finally beckoned - where Carandang discovered his true calling.

Carandang's milieu provided him his subject matter. Being old and historic, Malolos City, also in Bulacan, has plenty of Spanish-era ancestral homes. His hometown too, Plaridel, has such houses. Fear of these houses finally crumbling and vanishing due to neglect was what prompted Carandang to specialized in re-creating in miniature their facades, using a variety of materials for his works - like cement, wood, capiz shell, colored glass, terracotta bricks, metal, and acrylic paint.

Carandang's relief sculptures are replicas all right, but they are not exact copies. He told me that he just invented some details. But these inaccuracies don't matter anyway. Because, as per his intention, his artworks will still give future generations of Filipinos an idea on how and where Filipinos of the past lived. Besides, his works will likewise prove that Philippine architecture is not exemplified by the 'bahay-kubo' alone, but also by those sturdy  Castilian-inspired heritage houses, the so-called 'bahay na bato' of old.