Don Bryan Bunag: Stranger Things

BY JAY BAUTISTA |

There are places I'll remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone, and some remain

In My Life

The Beatles

For his 5^th solo exhibition, Sa Tabon, Don Bryan Bunag returns home once more. Picking up from where he left off in his first show, he becomes more personal and dwells deeper by capturing bygone scenes that reprise meaningful stages in his life.  

Situated in Bulacan, Bulacan, Baranggay San Francisco is what is popularly known as Tabon. It used to be vast expanses of fields where farming sustained the people living there. For the longest time, Tabon maintained its rural culture--which came alive only when a religious procession is being observed or a local carnival is set up--to mark its annual festivities. Away from his parents, Bunag grew up here when grandmother took him under her loving care as he was about to attend pre-school. Spending his entire formative years with his extended family and life-long friends, Bunag was accustomed living simple way in a rustic manner.  

Compared to his contemporaries in the art scene--whose fascination revolves around the floral, the grotesque and the macabre--Bunag does not want to be boxed in a format or be loud with his brushstrokes. His visual style may be academic with processes influenced by Titian, Rubens and Rembrandt, he prefers and is well- versed with fleeting moments and impermanence of nostalgia evoking silence. The ambience of Tabon sets this tone for the exhibit depicting memory with what was familiar and ethereal for this award winning visual artist.

Tabon series are eighteen scenarios--each capturing the meaningful moments Bunag got to spend around people in his most sensitive self and what was most memorable to him. He reminisces his time spent perched on a tree with his sister or on a swing while flying kites with friends; his riding bicycles, playing basketball and swimming in the pristine rivers of Tabon are faintly recorded.

His intimate bonding activities with his family such going to mass or being carried just to touch Jesus’s feet in a chapel wrought by his mother’s abiding spirituality can also be witnessed. Even how his grandfather brings him to school and taught him to play the drums are informally documented. He once saw an old farm with a herd of lambs sparked on him the dream of having the same space to take care of such genteel flock.

Typical to the young and melancholic Bunag he was often seen laying on the ground looking at the heavens—sometimes on a fence, in a bench or lying on the grass whiling away his time, observing the images formed in the clouds. His own quiet time is also impressed upon here—staring at a pond or looking up in the sky while imagining things--are mutely embedded. These were his initial manifestations of the kind of art practice he is espousing now.

Done in loose textures of impressionism, there is evident stillness in Bunag’s subjects--with only a hint of figuration involved—as if he leaves to his viewers to situate themselves in them. Only the truly experienced artists like Bunag could impart a mood piece, which is quite universal to the viewer, yet leave something distinct into them. Each work is anecdotal, rich in meaning and symbolisms--an ode to time and how it moves together with the heavens all at the same time. Placed side by side on shelves, they are like one long reel of film marked by Bunag’s own passage of realities. He has adopted filmmaker’s tools in these small paintings marked with cinematic aesthetics.

Bunag left Tabon when his grandmother died and he was a year short of graduation in 2012. When Bunag came back early this year he could barely recognize the sense of place Tabon was. Prodding him to question: Can one physically leave a place yet preserve how it once was in one’s own memory?

The encroaching vines and tall grass represent Bunag as he saw himself in the lush vegetation grown through time as depicted Tabon 1 with him in mind—a kind of portrait of Bunag as foliage. Bunag was waxing sentimental upon seeing how much Tabon has changed since he last been to it. Tabon 3 is a mossy testament to that--an ode to the last remaining lot beside the factory in Tabon. It speaks of the plight of Tabon it is purposely misaligned to connote much change.  

Tabon 2 remains the mysterious gate where old people were saying a Chinese lived beyond the wall from the gate. He was warned whoever trespasses will be killed. Until this day Bunag has not unravel if the story is just a myth since he saw rust already eating the gate and untended grass has embraced it--only shows no one has entered it after a long time.

After a well-thought-of process Bunag likely starts with a sketch—sometimes hurriedly as his hand tries to keeps up with his imagination. Then he channels them on tweed fabric. For two years now Bunag favors how acrylic is reflected upon it. A signature Bunag is the monotony of a single color--what was once sepia has now become more basic in charcoal gray. What is more important to Bunag is the narrative of the story than any suggestive hue.

Layering like old school classical painting, Bunag usually prefers water-based paints having started out as a watercolorist. He favors acrylic and graphite as under painting to glazing. Sometimes finishing off with oil paint. His work typically has 7-9 layers depending on the different tones of consistencies. Each layer has an effect--he wants it raw and textured in strokes in the end.

Tabon 1

Bunag relied most of these Tabon images to his memory since most of the locations he is familiar with no longer exist--giving emphasis on unmediated sentimentality. It is only now that Bunag realized he left Tabon but it did not leave him. He wanted to depict Tabon of yore in the sincerest way and most mature rendering since he started painting. He wanted a room full of memories and he has done that. More than the lost rice fields and pristine rivers he wanted to capture Tabon as a feeling, as a mood like a longing sigh or and accidental swoon, as if he feels for the viewer. At a young age he is already an old soul by how he has gathered a plethora of memories to paint them in a lifetime.

For now, Bunag is finally home—as if he never left.