Art Journey of the Mangyan Artist

 

 

Essay 60. ART JOURNEY OF THE MANGYAN ARTIST

By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol 

Let me borrow a term that pertains to folklore or mythic narratives from long ago: Ethnic Genre. I supposed ethnic genre could also be used to categorize the subject matter of painters who like to portray or narrate in paint not only the visual attributes of members of ethnic tribes, but also their doings or way of life. Ethnic genre is different from ethnic art, which is but the aggregate of art objects the tribal natives create themselves.

MATT RELOX specializes in ethnic genre. He was born in Mindoro - in Bansud, Oriental Mindoro specifically - a Philippine island whose indigenous inhabitants are the Mangyans. Relox is not of Mangyan ancestry himself, but living in relatively close proximity with these people whose way of life and peculiar clothing are very much different from those of the lowland inhabitants, Relox couldn't help but be inspired to document his impression of them in paint and other art mediums.

A recent series of his are depictions of Mangyans engaged in their daily routines of gathering and selling fruits and vegetables, sharing a family meal, fixing bamboo tools, or just plain resting at the top of the ladder of their hut. These black and white artworks were accomplished using pen and ink and rendered by the cross hatching of lines. Relox dubbed his meticulous cross-hatching technique as "million strokes of sincerity", which is his way of telling us of the tediously long yet rewarding time he spent completing an artwork.

Born to Fabio  - a barber and farmer - and Lilia Manato, one of Matt Relox's early memories is of his father drawing while singing. Nothing unusual in that, except that the drawings he would finish, usually of human figures, was the corresponding visual interpretation of the lyrics of the song. Relox mimicked that extraordinary performance. He memorized a song of his father and sang it before his amazed classmates, while doing his own drawing interpretation of the lyrics.

Relox started on his art journey early. He became a professional artist even before he graduated from high school, when he was hired by an outdoor advertising firm in Calapan, Oriental Mindoro. In 1979, after finishing high School, Relox began working as textbook illustrator for Rex Printing, where he was later on promoted to Art Director. Relox has had four solo art exhibits so far and had joined three hundred group shows. He is about to hold his fifth solo at the La Habra Gallery in La Habra City, California. Relox is now based in the USA where he won a slew of honors and awards, the most prestigious of which is the Gawad Amerika Award.

In practicing his craft, Relox said that he doesn't favor one medium in particular. He uses nearly all of them: watercolor, oil paints, pastels, graphite and colored pencils, and pen and ink. Relox spoke extensively about watercolor though. He asserted that he is not intimidated by its supposed recalcitrance and unpredictability. He, in fact, thrives on it and welcomes the challenge. Relox said that, for him, the accidental yet aesthetically pleasing effects in watercolors were not mistakes. He sees them as watercolor's tendency of taking his artworks beyond the original concept of the painting he had in mind. Many times in the past those accidental effects were what gave Relox's works the fluidity so desirable in watercolor paintings. Relox added that euphoria would suffuse him once a work is finished and all that's needed to fully complete the work is his signature. Artists know about this feeling. It is not money primarily that gives artists the most bliss, but rather the realization that they have contributed something to the art world's compendium of acknowledged, would be, or near masterpieces.