KASINING ESSAYS by Arnaldo de Tondo

  Essay 59. THE DYNAMIC LADY PAINTER  By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol  JOSEPHINE "ESANG" BEJASA ADAME belongs to a not quite long line of Filipino painters who espouse environmentalism in art. Most prominent among them are Prudencio Lamarroza and Rafael Cusi. I was at the opening of "Myth and Magic in the Image of Woman", Prudencio Lamarroza's 1984 art exhibit at the Gallery Genesis which featured his Amburayan Queen series. It was my first time to encounter the actual and stunning works of Lammaroza, the artist dubbed as an ecological painter by art critic Leo Benesa. Rafael Cusi, at around the same time, was also making a name for himself for his series of watercolors celebrating colorful marine life. Cusi is Esang's uncle. Thus, we can surmise that it was he who inspired Esang to take up art as her other profession. Why other profession? That's because Accounting is what Esang took up in college at the University of Batangas. She later earned her Master...

  Essay 58. OF LIGHTHOUSES AND DARK PLACES (The Art of Esther Sevilla-Garcia) "My spiritual calling is also to be the light and salt of the earth," so declared Esther at the conclusion of my online interview with her. Why salt? What's with salt? Jesus Christ in his sermon on the mount described the crowd he was addressing as the salt of the earth - by which he meant that they were worthy, virtuous, and valuable. Ester aspires to be like them. Esther's statement reveals her altruistic mindset. She opened her own gallery in Loyola Heights after graduating cum laude in Fine Arts (her second degree) at the University of the Philippines in 1998. Her gallery, the MSG Gallery, was where she held art workshops. Esther later on organized her students and formed the Amber Group. The thrust of her gallery being precisely to provide exposure to the art of her students, it was there that Esther mounted group shows to showcase their output. Sadly though, even if the Amber Group is ...

  Essay 57. HARI'S RAINBOW-COLORED WORLD By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol  One hundred fifteen years after Pablo Picasso created the proto-cubist painting, "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon",  Cubism continues to cast its spell on the present generation of artists. Cubism, was one of the pioneering styles that eschew depicting natural appearance in art, the dictum propounded by Picasso when he declared that "Nature and art, being two different things, cannot be the same thing." Filipino artists, painters and sculptors alike, took to the new style. Vicente Manansala, after his French sojourn, switched style and adopted Cubism, and abandoned for good the Botong Francisco style that had inspired him for some time.  Many Filipino painters followed Manansala's lead. Among them was the late Oscar Zalameda. Zalameda is Hari's lodestar. Both of them are natives of Lucban, Quezon. It is perhaps because of their shared affinity for that place why Hari adopted Zalameda'...

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-o...

Essay 55. OF FABRIC PRINTS, JAPONISME, AND KLIMT By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol  MYLENE QUITO's art exudes feminity all over. Her paintings of blossoming flowers, mother and child, and even her abstracts, are all decorated with patterns not unlike the prints of dainty girl dresses. Mylene might have arrived at this style on her own, without her being influenced by artists doing similar works, but this style, Pattern and Decoration (P&D), has been around since the mid-1970s. The P&D Movement was organized to attract the critical attention monopolized then by conceptual and minimalist art. The P&D's distinct trait was its appropriation of fabric and wallpaper patterns, and also the arabesques and ornate designs of Islamic and other non-Western art.  Although often associated with feminism and feminine crafts like quilting, embroidery, and the like, the P&D Movement also has male adherents and practitioners. There's nothing surprising in that because this patternin...

  Essay. 54. BEST OF BOTH WORLDS By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol  REX O. CELIZ is in an enviable position. That's because he was able to achieve his childhood dream of becoming a painter and at the same time practice a lucrative career as a corporate lawyer. Celiz disclosed that his desire to be an artist never waned when he grew up, but practical consideration made him opt to be a lawyer instead. Celiz first studied History at the University of the Philippines-Visayas. After receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree there, he next enrolled at the Ateneo de Manila University where he earned his Juris Doctor degree. He also took advanced studies at the University of San Diego for his Master Of Laws degree  Bago City is in Negros Occidental, a province in Western Visayas, known for its sprawling sugar cane plantations. Celiz was born there, in 1966. The sights of these plantations and the seasonal routines of the migrant sugarcane workers or "sacadas" cutting ang gathering those sug...

  Essay 53. PAINTER OF NATURE'S BOUNTY By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol ERIC MANUEL PRESADO followed his bliss and found full unalloyed satisfaction by selflessly imparting his knowledge of art and art making.  A Special Art teacher for ten years at the Mabini Elementary School in Quiapo, Presado had taught specially-inclined children there the rudiments of drawing and painting. Presado's advocacy started with his involvement with Imee Marcos's "Super Kulayero (Super Colorers)" movement in the latter half of the 1970s, the goal of which is to encourage artistically-gifted children to help turn drab walls into concrete ''canvases" for colorful murals. The Super Kulayero was actually a spin-off of the 'Kulay Anyo ng Lahi (Color and Form of the Race)' project of the  First Lady Madame Imelda Romualdez Marcos. Participants in her project, which include four future National Artists, had their designs magnified and copied on walls of selected buildings by...