Jason Delgado: Pillow Talk

BY JAY BAUTISTA |

In Molo, Iloilo most of the youth do not sleep soundly these days. Their constant exchange of bric-a-brac violence among gangs have heightened tension and caused anxiety among its members. Evident of which is how they sleep with knives tucked in their pillows to protect them--in case the inevitable happens.

Though Jason Delgado is not directly involved yet they are all his friends, as he has been witness to this grim forced habit. As an artist he is sensitive enough to paint what bothers him. It was for a group exhibition in 2017 at the Museo ng Iloilo that he showed his first pillow as theme masterpiece, he titled it The Struggle Begins When the Day Ends.

Delgado went to develop further this bespoke visual style all relating to his anxieties and issues affecting his young life. He has painted them all, as When the Day Ends has now become the title of his first solo exhibition at Art Verite Gallery.

An obvious culprit why Delgado paints pillows is that sleep has eluded him in his preparation to be a full pledged artist as he looks back to his life in these past months of the ongoing pandemic. He is even more active when he forces himself to rest—this is where his mind grapples with artistic concepts and he reminisces his past experiences and its painful lessons. To commit in this art practice, even simultaneously pursuing to be a licensed architect, Delgado is committed to that it is worth doing and engages it in his own terms.

An irony lies that there are a multitude of practicing artists in Iloilo yet there is a dearth of Fine Arts schools in Iloilo (there is only one). Like Delgado, many take the creative path through architecture or even architectural draftsmanship.

 

In Overtime Delgado provides you with a glimpse how he mixes painting and architecture together. The architect in him reveals how he carefully plans his pieces by random sketches anticipating whatever foul ups that come his way such as in considering the electrical, plumbing and structural in architecture. In painting, he is meticulous to detail as painstakingly how the creases folds up or is thrown in the air that makes up his emphatic composition exacting.

 

Notice the ants as they signify hard work and consistency to purpose to be the true measure of success. Other fellow Ilonggos have done it, so can he be architect-painter in the future.

Empty revisits a recent episode Delgado was faced with on his road to being an architect. Last January, he and three other architect hopefuls started attending review sessions in Manila. As the covid pandemic worsened, however, they were abruptly halted when the national government declared a lockdown come March 16. As the runabout scourging for tickets on their flight to go back home they found a cheaper available one but they had to take it at the Clark international Airport. Cash strapped and already emotionally-drained, they had to hurry and catch it on the day before the nationwide lockdown was imposed. It will only mean they have to spend the evening of the 14^th of March to catch it. With a fully occupied lounge, they just settled on the floor along the airport corridors with their bag bearing a few clothes and architecture books in tow. The experience so marked Delgado he decided to paint it in stark black and white. 

Plain, Pure and White

 Delgado is the youngest in a sibling of four. His mother, Erna, is the epitome of faith having devoted her life to the service of the Catholic Church. Plain, Pure and White reflects her abiding religiosity as seen in the embossed cross.

 

Their family traces their roots in Bacolod however it was in Iloilo that his father, Ronaldo, found his calling in a rattan furniture venture. Delgado honors him in Sharp and Polished as how he remembers his father who passed on after a lingering bout with cancer. His father spent his dying three months in Bacolod under the care of Delgado’s sister who was a nurse in a hospital there.

 

Sharp and Polished

Using his father’s tool as a protruding device, in rattan industry sharpness of skill is key and how one’s finished results is polished that impresses customers to patronize him. The flowers are Delgado’s way of adoration to the great man his father is.

As Delgado is most secretive, pillows have been most vulnerable--his silent confidants—as he lays his head down in his bed. They have become his creative venues for possibilities of form and meaning. It is the lieu of his sensitive internalization of the things around him.

 

Overtime

After sketching his thoughts, he finalizes the set up as he composes the objects on canvas. He attempts to be as hyperrealist on his images as possible. He is even tempted to lay down on his references after painting them. The value of a visual representation in an occurrence through a concealed object can be juxtaposed by suppressing it.   

A pillow has all the possibilities to suit one’s need. It is a poetic conveyor of our senses as it is Delgado’s propensity to de-familiarize things with allegories and alluded definitions. Delgado’s brilliance is how he meticulously paints folds, creases and hidden figures in relief to reveal his intended purpose. The shapes that he embosses intimate the object; it is this tension between revelation and concealment that the greater significance states the obvious.

Poverty did not hinder Delgado in inspiring himself that he can fulfill his dreams. He often inspire himself by pushing himself to strive more. In his Soliloquy series Delgado reminds himself to excel and be the best version of himself whatever life offers. The running texts are like him whispering to himself.

Soliloquy 1 captures the damp feeling while being tossed up as he stared intently at the fearsome waves of the Guimaras Straits. As soon as his father bid them goodbye Delgado was on his way back on the boat to Iloilo to arrange for his wake and funeral. A comforting text runs across: Close your eyes a miracle may happen.

Meanwhile Soliloquy 2 counters his bad luck with the feng shui of polka dots as bringer of fortune marked by the red dots that connote abundance and luxury. Like a post-it note smack in the middle to remind him: You are a seed. Wait.

Soliloquy 2

Expect Delgado to end with a high note and Soliloquy 3 is a perfect rallying cry for him--both as an artist and when he finally hurdles the architecture licensure board in June next year: Catch your breath. No retreat. No surrender.

For Delgado, pillows are our most personal accessory--next to underwear and toothbrushes. As you lay yourself to slumber, the continuation of your existence depends on it. They are soft and light yet pillows carry with them your darkest secrets and deepest longings. Pillows are pure comfort. At the end of the day, you long for it. You can rest but not quit on living.

Soliloquy 3

When the Day Ends is ongoing at the Art Verite Gallery at 2/F Shops at Serendra, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig

Michael Delmo: Painting on a Prayer

BY JAY BAUTISTA |

Sakiyo

Oftentimes to espouse the contemporary, artists painstakingly create alternative realities of their own making. From organic cast of subjects, to ethereal settings, even backing them up with personal myths and mythologies as main conniving narratives.

In his second solo exhibition AMPO (Hiligaynon for prayer) Michael Delmo contemplates further his artistic direction on this ongoing pandemic and pursues his faith in an inner spiritual vision wrought by whimsical creatures in eerie landscapes.

Tanghaga

For Delmo, art-making is a form of an in-depth religious undertaking--manifesting your full potential as a way of coping and even surviving these difficult and trying times. These seven paintings reveal a long hollowing narrative how Delmo has interpreted the coronavirus as a menace and as a imaginative tactic of revenge that the inherent good in people will eventually prevail.

The story goes there was once a world where inhabitants were living in harmony. In Sakiyo (steal) an alien creature arrives and imposes a grim influence of greed and terror to the community. The alien creature resembles how the coronavirus has appallingly enveloped our habitat. At the same time he has started to paint for this exhibition, Delmo cleverly establishes the similar parallel act to how even the coronavirus today also came from a foreign country.

Iwag (light) features a mysterious ray of light that has alerted the inhabitants signaling there is gravely something wrong with their surroundings. Pangayam (hunt) announces a cause for alarm as it portrays that one cannot anymore get out of this social quagmire threatening even the outside the world.

Sablok

Tanghaga (mystery) pushes the plot further by showing the alien creature painstakingly spreading the bad menace on the entire planet. The scenario is overpowering in a sense that the alien creature has completely ruled over his evil agenda. Banlod (confine) causes a sense of fear as one distrusts each other because of the predicament favoring the alien creature. A distressed angel is seen crying for help because his friend was one of those affected and infested with the manipulation as seen in Tanghaga.

Pangayam

Sablok (yearn) witnesses the lamented angel reporting to the abled guardian of the society that his kinfolk was caught and already manipulated by the alien creature. While holding his child the angel complains to what happened as the abled guardian compassionately listens to her. On a positive note, Sagukom (embrace) succumbs as goodness triumphs while the world is at the height its peril. The situation brought out the caring instinct of the inhabitants with one another. The inhabitants begin to be responsible for their upkeep and protection--as long as one remains vigilant and look after beyond himself.

Growing up in Iloilo, Delmo was already exploring these anthropomorphic characters in high school. Delmo was visually honed doing masks and costumes every year for the annual Dinagyang Festival every fourth Sunday of January. Several months prior to the event, he would tag along with choreographers and musicians, they would travel every town researching on local lore, legends and the indigenous expressions of a particular tribe or people. He would hurriedly sketch as they brainstorm on the spot to concoct the plot for the 10-minute at the prized At-Ati dance competition. Each artistic tableau involves history, religion and culture of how the Sto. Niño is venerated to seal the pact between the Datus and the locals. Delmo was able to imbibe the various tribal instincts of the performers. He wanted his designs to be as primarily natural as possible using feathers, beads and sequins and blend well with the audience and environment. Through the years Delmo has acquired his deep Hiligaynon roots and conceptualized his paintings similar to the scene per scene of the Dinagyang epic. This way of story-telling comes second nature to him. No wonder every pictorial frame he churns out is a staged performance in live color. Even his titles are Visayan in origin and scope.

Sagukom

Delmo devises his own paint brushes, sourcing them from discarded chicken feathers. Depending on their application they satisfy his precise brushstrokes and translate his bespoke iconographies. Although his visual style is homegrown he remains to be authentic despite the current art practice today that has evolved into a coy and crass creative exercise.

He is by nature an initiator—wanting to be a trailblazer on his own, away from their conventional modes of mixing paints. With no drawing reference, he usually illustrates from his subconscious straight to an inviting blank white canvas. An early riser, initially he does not yet figure the image yet he knows what it is all about. Delmo is inspired by Hiligaynon words as titles in expounding his ripening world-view. In explaining further, Delmo supposedly feels relief for every concept finished off on canvas—a figurative pierced thorn is taken out of his worries—like an unloaded burden off his back.

Delmo’s realism counters the traditional genres for it to redefine itself into new actualities in its own right. It adheres to that old school of eye to hand skill in service of the imagination. Often eschewing the banal and sacred, it defies fixation with the tested norms. Looking up to his fellow Ilonggo artists as influences, practicing art in the peripheries has taught Delmo new and fresh perspectives he has immortalized with his own distinct and evocative expressions. As if enlightening the viewer, AMPO is striking for its diversity and spontaneity—an in-your-face figurative theater. It has no shared style or desired intentions yet a common thread persists that individually Delmo is capable of imagination and commitment to the craft. His paintings are organically breathing, ethereally impermanent and fixture of contemplation. They continue to grow on you--long after seeing the exhibition and the ongoing pandemic maybe over.

AMPO is ongoing at Art Verite Gallery until August 6, 2020    

Arel Zambarrano: Construction Ongoing

 BY JAY BAUTISTA |

Calm in the Surface, Intense Underneath

A deep abiding faith on one’s creativity often comes in the most abstract of expressions and artists like Arel Zambarrano often turnaround something ordinary (this time from his workplace) even bordering on boredom they only know how—using imagination and available mixed media.

Aside from being an award winning visual artist, Zambarrano has always been a licensed architect. In his 4^th solo exhibition, Flexible Nerves Zambarrano narrates how he found inspiration among construction workers, basic industrial tools, and architecture materials transforming them into framed parables using them to explore important themes such as joys, anger, challenges and inconsistencies through espousing our emotions, acceptances and resolutions in life. Zambarrano firmly establishes his personal concepts and creative philosophies--his relentlessness and inventiveness in the visual arts--in these composed and solitary pieces, as he addresses social realism in our most basic human condition.

The Molting Stage Will Soon Be Over

The contemporaneity of Zambarrano’s visual approach as he essays his art is in the simplest way possible not in complex coded language but in clear semantics of life: because he believes each contemporary artist should tell us about current life and the world we share at the moment.

Calm in the Surface, Intense Underneath represents Zambarrano’s 34 grappling years of existence. Greeting the viewer as one enters the Ilomoca premises, each concrete sculptures was prefabricated from his own legs. This is how intensely personal Zambarrano intimates his art practice—art and life are enmeshed to one another. Using fiber-reinforced concrete, he installed them upside down projecting grace and temperance as an artist amidst many contextual professional pressures. He got the idea upon seeing ducks swimming, tranquil and soft while arduously paddling. They are serenely floating while settling their survival underneath the deep water.

Boy-Boy (1/4)

Zambarrano has always induced the element of wonder. His materiality dictates whatever mood he is in depending on what he perceives be it blades, knives, nails, level bar, used shovels and rubber bands. Zambarrano firmly believes artists were blessed with talents, as they are expected to be responsible human beings first in society than the confines of a gallery. As his daily preoccupation with insurmountable work attending the building of two island resorts, commercial establishments, and even creation of artist studios whiling away his time, Zambarrano has found creativity with his industrial surroundings. This time he favored to prefabricate everything before he even primes his canvases and overlaying them with another image using acrylic glasses. Exposing texture he attaches bullet slags, burning leatherette and even pouring crushed gravel on his site-specific installation. These resources reflect the ordinary, discarded, unused, and broken materials enabling every brushstroke as diverse like the different days where Zambarrano worked on his pieces.

Purya Usog

These pieces appear as visual symbols of unseen realities rendered in pictorial rhetoric through cultural signifiers that only Zambarrano can comprehend their symbolical meanings such as knives in Artificial Hindrance. Knives have always been a constant in Zambarrano’s past exhibits. It represents fear and uncertainty which is a given in reality. He reclaims what is lacking in its aesthetics and mayhem whether he renders realist strokes or veers into abstract transparency of forms and solidity of shapes define the quintessential Zambarrano. One cannot be overwhelmed by his art pieces, often employing rhythm and harmony in composition his dimensions draws a thin line in between softness of acrylic glass and harshness of paint rendition yet they are carefully controlled and vary at certain points from another not because they are nice to look at but because they are painstakingly conceived in rendering. Double meaning ensues as Zambarrano is fond of diversifying perspectives.   

His paintings are also sensuous variations of collective narratives, memories and dreams. The fascination in rough-like surface in his works is evident in time. It is metaphorical in depiction of this world we live in as paralleled by a slowly decaying, human body that is deteriorating and will turn back into nature’s dust--our ashes. Consider Purya Usog which is his ode to his daughter. Not everything is raw and melancholic yet it is fear   conveyed on his positive vibrations on his daughter as trials and challenges that make him more human. He and his wife as parents on acrylic glass purifying the image with bullet slag attached through to be able see its real essence in our already gruesome and violent world.

Clinched Ethereality

Zambarrano moves freely inside the painting as he probes his inner self and explore contours and variations of colors, paraphrasing the mortal world and beyond in less fanciful embellishment or distortion. His thoughts and feelings as an artist are astounded in each of the four canvases in Boy-Boy and nine canvases in the Magnanimous grip series. They feature the images of common people he has accustomed to--construction workers, pedicab drivers, labourers, farmers, porters, fishermen, etc. He expressively painted each figure allowing them to stand out against obscurity. It is being overlaid with transparent acrylic glass etched with outlines of juxtaposed ants intended to receive numbers of actual bullet slags on informal frame which in turn holds the dysfunctional level bar. With the reflection of Zambarrano, magnanimous grip series portrays courage beyond social injustice.

Ever the grateful, The Molting Stage Will Soon Be Over pays homage to an early influence, Allain Hablo. The celtic pattern overlay on acrylic glass is reminiscent of Hablo's previous masterpiece, I am Who I am. Hablo symbolizes those first and second generation of Ilonggo artists who stayed awake when it was still dark in the Visayan art scene. Hablo holds a stature in Iloilo--how one can be commercially successful without compromising one’s art. Hablo has been their pride in Visayan art as seen in the rawness and integrity of his being an artist at the onset of his career. He chose to stay in Iloilo because this where the “creative war,” without the benefit of convenience or the luxury of appreciating their art--to survive one must tell our own stories from our own experiences. Zambarrano does not want to lose his bearings and keep his feet rooted on the ground. He continues to stay in Iloilo as the conflict surges.

Post Inner Torment (using blades)

One can almost smell his coloration in Clinched Ethereality wherein rubber bands are actually landscapes dwelling intuitively into his subconscious mind. His composition of colors range from cool to earthy hues, these are vivid projections of his dreams and aspirations. Skulls have always figures in Zambarrano’s iconography, they value living like a memento mori despite prevalent poverty all around. This represents the beauty of impermanence.

Given the current art scene’s infatuation with hyperrealism, auction-bound, emo-ridden parlance, Flexible Nerves has an in-your-face realism coming at you. Against the hushed solitude of Ilomoca, Zambarrano’s pieces shout out loud and roughs up bad your composure. They may not be polite and pleasing to the eyes, he then proceeds to rearrange your sense of reality and positions to make you feel what it is to be truly human.

Noel Elicana: Firestarter

BY JAY BAUTISTA |

Finished Duty

Opting to thrive as a practicing artist in Iloilo, eluding far off the imperial art center on purpose, is not about sheer luck or burgeoning talent. Blood, sweat, and tears are offered on a daily grind. As one physically labors alone the long hours, he must stay focused and be dedicated to perfecting one’s raw craft for the rest of his life. There has never been a secret formula for a struggling artist to test in; one has to make his own space and translate it to his own visual language.

For award winning artist Noel Magallanes Elicana--to be poor and homegrown--the art world may not have yet existed for his creativity until this day. And even before he accomplishes anything, he already looks back and acknowledges those who were there for him in the past. As Elicana flexes his artistic sensibilities, he extends his hand in gratitude to all his benefactors—those whose hand fed his mouth to satisfy his hunger to survive, replied to his queries and nurtured his creativity on the edge, continued to pat his back and held a light for him when it was at its darkest—paving the way of his imaginative path.

His first exhibit, Tayhop, professes this authenticity, discipline and grit before he pursues his uphill battle in the Philippine art scene.

Tayhop is that turning point in the vernacular—the act of blowing through a tube--when starting a flame on the ember in the tinder bundle until fire catches. Elicana belongs to the current crop of Ilonggo contemporary artists advancing their Hiligaynon lineage yet expounding on their own visual style. Tayhop is his indigenous analogy relative to all the inspiration, guidance, disciplines, as well as the struggles that he went through making him stronger, more confident and expressive as he is today. Tayhop highlights the importance on giving value to the people who paved the way for him stemming up from all of his misfortunes, drudgery and sham he encountered. And the exhibition pays homage to the people who created a dent to his life and eventual art making as he pays it forward. It showcases his tribute to his guardians, his beliefs, as well as aspirations. It tackles Elicana’s meaningful life changing events and childhood memories that gave his current motivations as an artist today.

When Day and Night are One

Being the only boy in the brood of three, Elicana was her mother’s favorite despite being the cry baby and an in born shy-type. He was barely five years old when she passed on due to difficult pregnancy and a lingering heart ailment. He and his siblings were adopted in Iloilo leaving his father to work in Manila. From then on Elicana skipped playing in the streets and matured early. He was even forced to gather wood in the forest during weekends to sell for their sustenance. He stared poverty on its face that he became numbed with hunger and got used to having only life’s barest necessities. Elicana and his sisters experienced a topsy-turvy progression of being adopted by various familial relations in Iloilo, some more painful than the others while his father worked in a knitting factory in Manila. 

Drawing positively inward, becoming more personal than social as his visual language progressed. The paintings of Elicana has been churning out what constitute as attaining positive wrought with values, exploring metaphors in artistic freedom, organic favoring lush iconographies, abiding religious faith in his struggle overcoming tragedy through self-sacrifice.

Engraved Yesterday's Silence

Against rust and mold-like hues resembling trauma with a hint of hope, Engraved Yesterday’s Silence is Elicana’s canvas of his “first childhood memories.” The white dress was what his mother wore while lying in her coffin while the smaller one recognizes his sister who only lived for a measly ten minutes. There was never a day Elicana did not long for them. It is barely a semblance as he saw the purity of white as a sign of hope one day they would be together once again. The knife represents how strict his father became after they lost his wife and their mother. One traumatic time, at an instance, in drunken fit of disappointment and rage, Elicana’s father pointed a knife at them. The three white eggs are Elicana and his siblings reminding him that you cannot hold them too tight or too loose as any which way it will break them. The good son that he is, Elicana may not have gotten over the scene yet he continues to love and respect him until this day when he is old and sick with tuberculosis.

A Father's Journey

His father has been recurring image for Elicana. A Father’s Journey is attributed to him who has been Elicana’s source of strength in his words “from seed to growing tree.” Elicana has depicted him as a fierce, over-protective, ever-ready paternal figure like a dog who is always there for his brood. Yet he is the most loving creature as evident by the flowers overwhelming him--as if Elicana praises him to the highest degree to no end.

Elicana’s prowess comes in his painstaking details. Notice how he added white flowing lines as texture in all of his paintings. Similar to the bark of a tree, the harder the tree, the more textured it is. A gentle reminiscent of his familiarity with the forest gathered woods that survived him and his siblings. He did not join other kids and play in the streets rather he was holding a bolo and cutting branches from trees. That is why Elicana values every canvas he fills up to perfection reflecting this early work ethic.

Altar of Blessings is attributed to the seven guardians who took care of Elicana and his siblings in their formative years—his father, Uncle Ruby, Auntie Didet (Manila), Papa Dreg, Mama Celia (Jaro, Iloilo), Tatay Rudy and Nanay Mercy (in Oton, Iloilo during summer). His background depends upon the level of his affections with each of them, it is also Elicana demonstrating how he could be as illustrative as an hyperrealist he can be. This is the extent of his rendering of human anatomy. There may be no traces of facial renderings which Elicana veers away from stating the obvious on the contrary however he waxes sentimentality without featuring their facial representations.

Altar of Blessings

Elicana owes a big debt of gratitude to Papa Greg and Mama Celia, his uncle and aunt who took care of them as they were growing up in lieu of his father. When Day and Night are One and Finished Duty observed how they both sacrificed and often times taking two jobs just to fend for their brood. Oftentimes they barely sleep due to their work load. Depending on the season, Papa Greg is both a farmer and jeepney driver while Mama Celia who was a seamstress until she could no longer handle the sewing machine due to health reasons.

With this first offing, Elicana increasingly featured in a diverse range of realism and defying standard categorization of his works. He starts with raw brushstrokes emitting abstract expressionism before depicting his main image. Then he compliment it with supporting cast or meaningful amenities around it. Each painting is an experimentation and hybridization even blurring boundaries which is purely Elicana’s. His sphere of expression has become a breeding battleground that viewers can relate or re-appropriate to having similar experiences and one’s felt incident. Elicana is an innate storyteller and in his connived narratives there are no fixed answers or preachy sermons but only stories well-told and truth well-painted. In the end, his style is his substance.

Faith and Holy

Fire has always been symbolic to Elicana and a constant in his works. Even the title of the show is related to fire which has many representations to him. It could be his passion, or it could also mean in high spirits as eternal power in Faith and Holy. Elicana is a spiritual being, glorifying the Almighty God who he gives credit behind the wind to produce fire. Another staple in an Elicana painting is his fixation with keyholes as source of unlocking truth and imagination. For Elicana it is only faith that is the key to the mystery of living.

Found in the centerpiece of the exhibit is Enlighten which is about a big tree casting a silhouette of another tree that grew within overbearing with lush branches loaded with ethereal memories. As Elicana honored his parents, all the more he honors his forebears as well--who never got tired of imparting his valuable lesson after lesson as they aged in wisdom. This is evident in the flowers that grew from the branches. There are thorns everywhere as there are many challenges. The bones are reminders of our parents’ sacrifices. In a surrealistic urge, Elicana implants various molar teeth around as he got used to life’s struggles experiencing their gnashing dilemmas in between us. Mortal beings are represented by the flames and the burning clock at the center specifies our lives are ruled by God’s own time and not the rhythm of our world.   

Enlighten

Tayhop weaves Elicana’s concerns not merely as a conscious interlude of colors, illustrations and other media but as something that is originally perceived in his fertile imagination. His manifestations confront validation as his own inherent artistic intents and permutations stressing the value of spontaneity, appropriation and relevance. Establishing tension, solitude or equilibrium, his spatial yet lyrical pieces may be subtle or harsh yet both convey the sense of delight in his free reign of imagery and visual style. Elicana is proof that we do not need inspiration to create grand masterpieces. Your own struggles can be the content to complete your own body of work. And from the limitations imposed by that discipline breeds new ideas. In so doing Elicana uplifts himself so others can inspired and be uplifted as well. Tayhop is a kind of revenge against all these mundane circumstances surrounding our fates. And Elicana’s boldness comes from the realization that he too want to influence others. What is life about after all if you cannot do something of influence, like gathering fire to spread some more.

Michael Delmo: Game of Thorns

BY JAY BAUTISTA |

Lingi, 2019

Oftentimes to espouse the contemporary, artists painstakingly create alternate realities of their own making. From organic cast of subjects, to ethereal settings, even backing them up with personal myths and mythologies as main narratives. Tunok by Michael Delmo pursues this direction and attests to his belief in an enchanted inner vision wrought by fantastical creatures in eerie landscapes.

Growing up in Iloilo, Delmo was already exploring these anthropomorphic characters in high school. He remembers filling up his notebooks with these spontaneous drawings with sheer delight. One time, an obviously disappointed teacher, in fact, threw the notebook in disgust when she saw Delmo’s renderings instead seeing of academic notes. 

Suhong, 2019

The first thing one would normally wonder in a Delmo piece is how well he does it. He is by nature an initiator—wanting to be a trailblazer on his own, away from their conventional modes of mixing paints. With no drawing reference, he usually draws from his subconscious straight to an inviting blank white canvas. He does not yet know the image but he knows what it is all about. Delmo uses Hiligaynon words as titles in expounding his world-view. In explaining further, Delmo supposedly feels relief for every concept finished off on canvas—a figurative pierced thorn is taken out of his worries—like an unloaded burden off his back.

Delmo has even invented his own paint brushes, sourcing them from discarded chicken feathers. Depending on their application they satisfy his precise brushstrokes and translate his bespoke iconographies. Although his visual style is homegrown he remains to be authentic despite the current art practice today that has evolved into a coy and crass creative exercise.

Sum-ok, 2019

Hulbar, 2019

Delmo’s realism counters the traditional genres for it to redefine itself into new actualities in its own right. It adheres to that old school of eye to hand skill in service of the imagination. Often eschewing the banal and sacred, it defies fixation with the tested norms. Looking up to his fellow Ilonggo artists as influences, practicing art in the peripheries has taught Delmo new and fresh perspectives he has conceptualized with his own distinct and evocative expressions. As if enlightening the viewer, Tunok is striking for its diversity and spontaneity—a performance on canvas. It has no shared style or desired intentions yet a common thread persists that individually he is capable of imagination and commitment to the craft. His paintings are organically breathing, ethereally impermanent and continues to grow on you--long after seeing the exhibition.   

Tunok by Michael Delmo was the culminating exhibit of his three-month stay at the Artletics' 22 Narra Residency Program. It was held at the Tagaytay Contemporary.