KASINING ESSAYS by Arnaldo de Tondo

  Essay 48. MODERN-TRADITIONALIST TRAILBLAZER RAJESH KUMAR YADAV's art had, at first glance, departed far from traditional Indian painting. That's easy to see, because Yadav's recent works used not only pop artist Andy Warhol's favorite composition device - repeating images - but also the abstract expressionists' very modern drip and splatter technique combined with collages. What makes Yadav's art distinct from Warhol's are the subjects of those repeating images. While Warhol appropriated pictures of western celebrities and commodities, Yadav chose commonplace elements like light bulbs and heads of what I identified as Hindu priests or "pandits". My observation though of a gulf separating Yadav's paintings from traditional Indian painting seems to be at variance with Yadav's view of his art. Yadav claimed that his "work comes from the deep connection with the art of India". But perhaps, what Yadav means by deep connection is that...

Essay 47. EAST MEETS WEST The first line of Rudyard Kipling's poem, "The Ballad of East and West" goes like this: "Oh East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet...". Well, that could be true, in other human endeavors perhaps - but not in art. An early example of the apparent blending of East and West in art was the surge in popularity of "Japonisme" among Western artists, mostly French, during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Japonisme was the term used to describe a style in art that was markedly influenced by Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints. The Post-Impressionist Vincent Van Gogh was one of those much influenced by Japonisme as shown by the linearity and graphic quality of his paintings, his adoption of Japanese composition devices like asymmetry, and his employment in the latter part of his short career of an intense full-color palette.  The outward flow of influence was reversed in the succeeding years when Asian ar...

  Essay 46. IN DEFENSE OF APPROPRIATION (The Art of Levi Yu) In the same manner that Cubism and other modernist styles liberated painters from their compulsion to copy natural appearances, so did Post Modernism free the succeeding generation of painters from their obsession to be original. That's because in this Post Modernist era, appropriation, or the copying of the artworks of other painters is no longer looked askance at by everyone. Post Modernism dates from when Pop Art - which was a reaction against  Abstract Expressionism's negation of recognizable image - arose. Pop Art and all the other styles that came after it were subsumed by art historians under the eclectic embrace of Post Modernism. But even before the arrival of Pop Art, appropriation was already resorted to by Marcel Duchamp who came out with his mustachioed image of Mona Lisa, and Salvador Dali who painted a facsimile of Vermeer's "The Lace Maker". A 1979 painting with a longish title by Art and...

Essay 45. BROTHERS IN ART By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol  Collaboration among artists is nothing new. That is a must when the art being created is a large-scale work, like a humongous mural for example. Monumental sculptures also require a number of people to complete it. But not all collective efforts in art making are genuine collaboration. Many are just master-apprentice relationships, where the whole credit for the finished work goes to the master, while the apprentices or assistants remain unknown. Painter Philipp Badon and sculptor Daniel Carpio are now collaborating on a sculpture project. Even though Badon is obviously the master here because of his decades-long experience in art making and notable standing in the Philippine art scene, Carpio is truly his collaborator despite his young age as he is given equal prominence. And rightly so, because the art they are making are woodcarvings, sculptures. Badon contributed the concepts and designs, and did the finishing touches. Paint...

  Essay 44. The Pop-Surrealist Sensei By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol ROGER "RISHAB" TIBON is an ardent lover of nature. That sentiment shows in his art. But not for him is the conventional depictions of nature in the manner of the Amorsolo school. Tibon employs a contemporary pop-surrealist approach in his paintings which is mildly disturbing if one isn't aware of its allegorical purpose. His usage of fantastic imagery is merely his way of bringing his advocacy in step with the times. One Tibon painting that's disturbingly mysterious is his portrait of a man with a face dotted by poker card patterns like hearts, spades, diamonds, and clubs. In lieu of hair, this man flaunts a luxuriant growth of sea fan corals atop his head. Completing the composition are images of a seahorse, lantern fish, seaweeds, and sea anemones. I could have easily identified this man as Tibon's interpretation of a contemporary Neptune or sea god, but the image of a rooster - even if not so cons...

  Essay 43. A WOMAN OF VISION By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol IPEK DENIZLI derives her iconography from various wellsprings of inspiration - mostly from styles that emerged during the postmodernist period. Gestural abstraction and Graffiti art are the styles Ipek's paintings have marked kinship with. While she admires Vincent Van Gogh and Frida Kahlo who are both figurative painters, Ipek chose to create works entirely distinct from theirs. I mentioned the word 'postmodernist'. What exactly is Postmodernism? Postmodernism is an eclectic movement that embraces not only painting, but also literature, film, photography, and performance, video, conceptual, and installation art. Also categorized as postmodernist are the successive art styles that sprouted after the heyday of Abstract Expressionism. Pop Art, which was a reaction against Abstract Expressionism's negation of recognizable image is postmodern. And so are Neo-expressionism, Graffiti, and feminist art. Unlike other scho...

  Essay 42. THE GOLD STANDARD IN ART By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol Gold occupies the highest niche among metals Even though I was told many years ago that it was dislodged by platinum from the highest pedestal, gold remains to be the standard of excellence in everything. A distinct characteristic of paintings during the Byzantine and Renaissance periods was the frequent use by artists of gold leaf in their artworks. That practice was carried over into the twentieth century by the Austrian master Gustav Klimt. Among Filipino painters, Raul Isidro and MYK VELASCO are the only ones I know who use gold leaf as pigment. There may be others but I don't know of them at this point (Gold leaf, by the way, is made of real or imitation gold and is available today in flakes, thin sheets, and in liquid form, the first two of which are glued on to the painting surface and the last applied by brush.) Michael N. Velasco was born on June 17, 1980 in Quezon City. Velasco's father is a business...