BY JAY BAUTISTA |
For the
uninitiated Alfredo Esquillo Jr. prefers to be in the peripheries as he favors
the folk religious, the pre-colonial indigenous and fresh visual language of
the young. Unlike other artists that concern themselves with the personal stuff
and the plurality of found objects in CautionaryTales
he readily inquires current issues and political events. Before he
painterly essays his paintings, this time he abstractly warns his viewers, as
he hopes they get his message.
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| Spending Time on a Chair |
Usually after
a long respite, it is exacting for Esquillo to venture a big leap in visual
style. His impulse is to his impending themes and how aesthetically he could
combine imagery—how will it morph—decorate his canvas without being too illustrative
and to create new potential meanings. In experimenting with Ethylene-Vinyl
Acetate (EVA) he rediscovers flatness as a spatial option. Though there are no portraitures
in these seven paintings, he graphically exhausts us with anatomy connoting each
body part with representations. What is recurring in every Esquillo piece are
his staple symbols like megaphones with wings as messenger angels, his
prophetic scrolls, and wave-like flames representing eminent danger ever
present in our own mortality. Another penchant now is his composition done in earth
pastel colors and curvillinear lines in existence.
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| Eve and Apples |
Eve and Apples continues from where an earlier piece
entitled Fall of Kolokoy has left
off. Esquillo depicts the beauty of women as prey to their own trap leading to their
eventual downfall. An inverted Eve is pierced while being suffocated by an
overbearing of apples. The scroll which Esquillo uses for his pronouncements is
not labeled as it tangles further the woman in question. She is even about to
be in a deeper black void of uncertainty. Notice how a more playful Esquillo in
transition uses flat frames or framing devices unlike before he would frame his
subjects with depth resulting in 3-D perspectives.
A dormant
reaction to one’s frustration is Pandora
as Esquillo cleverly uses pulleys and gadgets as a creative tactic of
expressing blind resignation to the political quagmire we are all into.
Covering the subject over his face it is the mechanical interlude that excites
the viewer, waiting the next moment to happen. We are all in this submissive
stance.
Camouflage is another retort pertaining to the
violent Marawi siege in Mindanao. Two limbs representing survival soldier’s
instincts humbly occupying the land while they firmly stand in denouncing
atrocity. The megaphone with wings is Esquillo’s symbol of homeward angels with
trumpets alluding that the Apocalypse is happening already. As it is present in
war, instead of music it will be a noise of sermon brought about by hatred and
deceit that will be heard.
Esquillo’s
process does not use a sketch rather it is mostly titles in mind that dictates
his imagery. Before setting everything up on canvas he already knows who and
what the main figure is. He then compliments it with minor characters for him to
explore further.
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| Babtism |
Another influence
for Esquillo are rubber cut Japanese woodcut prints or ukiyo-e which traditionally
plays on flatness as foreground background using figuration lines. He translates
them into his own version by using the EVA which is more adept to the
indigenous materiality to his images highlighting linear lines and decorative
features of his paintings.
Allegorically
commenting recent moves to revise our constitution thus affecting our history, it was only the head and the clasping claws
of the monster that was definite for Esquillo in Memory Eating Eagle. Attempting to oversize it bigger-than-life
Esquillo drew up a big brain as it sucks up his victim’s consciousness only to
be surprised that the monster’s eyes resemble a trigger of a gun. Accidental parallel
occurrences like this pleases Esquillo no end.
More than
graphic device, biblical verses as texts concern Esquillo. In Babtism, controversial for him was when
Jesus was babtized the Holy Spirit dawn on Him with a translated message as Di Kapayapaan, Kundi Tabak (He came not
for Peace but for the Sword). For Esquillo there are many interpretations of
truth and the word of God is open to various definitions. One will never be
calm unless one understands their application to our lives.
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| Pandora |
The
physical depiction of the man’s ribs reveals that God as an idea became man in
the flesh. On the other hand, religion which is man’s concept was given a
structure, thus, the simplest truths remain to be the most abstract of revelations.
Notice how the prevalent maroon backdrop evidences of Esquillo’s Nazareno
devotion.
How
Esquillo imbibed his father’s talent in deciphering texts from the Bible connoting
varied meanings is evident. It is Esquillo’s brilliance how he then applies it with
paints. Every combination of words used is complimented with implied goodness, value,
and remembrances of his spiritual father.
Interesting
how appropriation and free association is reflected in 300 Year-Old Slave. A man is burdened with colonial pillars and through time our weary bodies sag.
Emancipation in the form of an erupting volcano parallels as the soil erupts an
impending revolution to unravel.
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| 300 Year-Old Slave |
Dysfunctional
morphing is at its prowess in Spending
Time on a Chair. By his lonesome, a man whiles away his time unmindful of
ethereal happenings around him. In an almost abstract rendering all Esquillo’s
favored elements abound—clouds, flames, potencias,wings, thunders, monster’s
ears--while the unwritten scroll wraps around him. A cup slips due to his
absence while a cord is unplugged eschewing detachment from reality.
The man’s
consciousness floats as he struggles in his spiritual condition between good
and evil. As tension in his head overpowers him he is situated in a chair could
it be he is deteriorating to oblivion or just apathetic in his confusion?
Esquillo continues
to experiment through Cautionary Tales
and is consistent to have no definite style, transferring from one period to another
yet he goes back to a loop of regulars that binds together all these tendencies.
He remains more natural in combining potential imagery, the more freedom to
engage the further meanings are suggested. The deeper the political and social
underpinnings, the more enamored his design sense becomes and the greater
challenge is to simplify its overall aesthetic quality.
When
Esquillo was younger he viewed his works to be too old for his age. Now that he
is older he continues to aspire that they look younger and more relevant. As he
celebrates 25 years as a visual artist this puts the nationalist in Esquillo in
a brighter light of significance.
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