The Artist as a Technological Man

Essay 56. THE ARTIST AS A TECHNOLOGICAL MAN

By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol

The story is familiar: the life journey of a boy born into a family with meager means, who struggled hard to make something of himself, and attained in the end his dream of being a successful artist. The boy I speak of here is JERRY YBAÑEZ CONTRIDAS.

Contridas was born in Calbayog, Western Samar to Pedrito M. Contridas and Norma Ybañez. His artistic ability manifested itself early, during his elementary school years. Contridas initially aspired to earn a degree in Fine Arts but was forced by his straitened circumstances to take up instead Graphic Arts and Printing Technology at the Technological University of the Philippines (TUP), a course which to his mind guaranteed immediate employment upon graduation. It was a four year course, and Contridas completed it by his own effort by working as a lay out artist at Hiyas Publishing House. After college, Contridas was assigned another position in addition to being a lay-out artist, that of printing machine operator. 

Years later, he moved up further in life when he was employed by no less than the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, where he now served as Banknote and Printing Supervisor. It is a permanent position, which provided him with the wherewithal to pursue further studies, again at TUP, where he received his Master's Degree in Management and another bachelor's degree in Technical Teachers Education major in Printing.

Freed of financial worries, Contridas can now indulge his craving to do art. On his free times, Contridas takes his motorbike out and ride around the metropolis and beyond to paint outdoors. When asked who among the realist painters is his favorite, Contridas declined to name one saying that they are too many to mention. Among the abstractionists, he named Raul Isidro and Ombok Villamor as his favorites.

Isidro and Villamor's abstracts must have dazzled Contridas so, that he now finds himself not merely dabbling in abstraction. He explored and experimented and tried out different abstract styles, swinging from one extreme style to the other. And he opted to go big too, with one of his abstract works measuring 8 X 8 feet, more or less.

This big painting was apparently inspired by both the Suprematist and Constructivist styles which were invented by Russian artists in the early 1900s. I say that because of the geometric shapes Contridas depicted in that work, like circles, squares, triangles, and a profusion of straight lines which are the primary components of Suprematist and Constructivist paintings.

The other style of abstraction which Contridas tried his hands on is Abstract Expressionism. Nothing could be more antipodal than Suprematism/Constructivism and Abstract Expressionism. Because where suprematist and constructivist paintings are orderly and composed with precision in mind, abstract expressionist paintings, with their free-flowing colors and shapes, looked as if spontaneously done. Contridas' swinging from one extreme style to another exposes not only his restless and curious nature, but his versatility as well. 

Contridas must have meant his abstract expressionist paintings to be reflections of his buoyant feeling as exemplified by his usage of vibrant and dancing colors, and the geometric ones of his milieu at work, because the elements portrayed there are perhaps pared down representations of the parts and components of a printing machine. Contridas' espousal of these two opposing styles reveal the two contrasting facets of his persona: the painter of pure art and the technological man.