Romance with Things Old

 

Essay 49. ROMANCE WITH THINGS OLD

By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol

My former elementary schoolmates Hugolino Quintano and Henry Alib proposed that we three meet somewhere in Macapagal Avenue on April 23 to join Leni's grand birthday rally. But I begged off because ISAGANI FUENTES will also open on that day his solo art show, "Lilok at Luwad (Carving and Clay)", at the Renaissance Gallery, to which he invited me, and to which I confirmed my attendance days earlier. 

But I wasn't able to make good on my promise. I was on my way there at Ramon Magsaysay Boulevard waiting for jeepneys that will take me to Edsa Crossing near where the Megamall is located when I decided after an hour to abort the trip altogether and just go back home. All jeepneys were full, and many passengers stood hanging at their tail end. Although riding a taxi was an option I didn't dare to hail one, because aside from knowing that the taxi fare would be enough to buy me a meal, a recent experience taught me that empty taxis are hard to come by during rush hours. 

Isagani Fuentes' art journey is a huge success story. He didn't enroll in a fine arts school, not only perhaps because tuition fees there are high, but also because his parents, as many parents would, dissuaded him from treading the art career path because of the perceived notion of its being one sure way to penury. Thus, Fuentes took up a more practical course, Education, at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), a state university where students are scholars.

After graduation, Fuentes taught for several years at the Leodegario Victorino Elementary School in his hometown Marikina. Those were happy satisfying years for him  Yet, deep within, a thirst remained, a thirst he quenched by enrolling in an art workshop at the Philippines Women's University. From then on, Fuentes no longer just dabbles in art, he became a full-pledged artist, though not yet a full-time one, because he was still teaching 

Fuentes' long time romance with things old continues to this day. He disclosed to me one time that he got the inspiration to paint the things he does from the photographs he saw in the multi-volume series on Philippine culture,  "Filipino Heritage", specifically of the unearthed antique jars and woodcarvings of "bul-ul" (god-guardian of the rice crop) and other ancient Cordillera tribal artifacts. Fuentes' was so fascinated by those objects and the history and culture behind them that he made those antiquarian things the subject of his first solo show at the Avellana Art Gallery.

Fuentes had gone full circle in his journey, because what he features in his current show, his fourth solo, are also jars and tribal artifacts similar to the ones he exhibited around ten years ago. But he seems to have narrowed his composition format to the grid pattern that mimics an open cabinet supposedly displaying a jar or an artifact in its own partitioned shelf. All of the paintings now on show are constructed using that composition device. The paintings in his first solo show, however, didn't invariably show objects in their respective niches, because I remember some objects floating in fields of olive green, russet, or even black, if I remember correctly how those artworks look. 

The years between 2011 and now we're blessed years for Fuentes because aside from creating and selling in great profusion easel-sized works that now graced elegant homes, he was also commissioned by hotels to do near wall-sized abstract paintings for their lounges.

Fuentes also collects, not artworks by fellow artists, but actual bul-ul statues and other old tribal artifacts, and also industrial junks and discards, signages, and such, that were the detritus of our present era, which he restored to their old glory and gathered in a haven he calls Kubo Antigo. This eclectic collection could be a foretaste of what Isagani's future creative preoccupation would be. It's possible that Fuentes isn't aware of it, but his current fascination with things modern, discards though they may be, could be a signal of his cooling interest and romance with things old, and growing affection for things contemporary and popular.

-  April 26, 2022