philvisualarts: Judeo Herrera

Showing posts with label Judeo Herrera. Show all posts

18.8.17

Tarlac Artists Collaboration: Contemporary Philippine Art via McArthur Hi-way

BY JAY BAUTISTA

To remain contemporary when much of one’s environment reflects the rural and idyllic; to become authentic despite everything has become coy, commercial and crass; to be original and rogue while besotted with folklore, myths, and traditional views of art.

Aptly situated inside a commuter bus the creative predicament of being based in Tarlac confronts these twenty young visual artists today. As the centerpiece of this exhibition Maniam Pukaque is their collective stance on these themes, issues and concerns that entailed their individual responses through oil, acrylic, ink, and water-based media; an imaginative collaboration as a way of introducing each artist featured in this exhibition with the same title; bearing their own biases and perspectives, each anecdote is interactive and flowing while characters abound each revolving around various local produce related to their beloved home province.

With fertile grass on his mouth, a water buffalo is at the helm of this magical mystery tour. Though prime agricultural land continues to diminish every day due to commercialization and in demand real estate, much of Tarlac is still being farmed using this hard working partner of the Filipino farmer. It could also represent the Laughing Carabao symbolizing the locally crafted beer favored by the working class Tarlaquenos.

"MANIAM PUKAQUE" (overflowing)
Tarlac Artists collaborative Painting
243.84 X 365.76 cm
Museo ng Probinsya ng Tarlac

Other representations veer on products only found in these parts of Tarlac. Such is the Capas smoked fish as an endearing passenger; allegorically placed is the iniruban rice cake made with burned young sticky rice coconut milk and sweetener; the bignay rice wine coming from bignay berries; at the far back is a prepared ambula, formed from rice soaked in viand sauce saving much for the hungry with value for his tight budget; an ethereal vendor with an abaca fan calls out for tupig, grilled sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves over charcoal. The burnt scent in gazing smoke evidently lingers in the midst.

At the front seat, an absent-minded fine arts student stares blankly at the abyss with her multi-tasking tentacles dealing with various odd jobs she has to accomplish in time to finish her studies and eventually move on with her creative life. A stoic girl with eggs for eyes and a crowning nest for hair signify how Tarlac is by forced circumstance a nesting ground for the would-be artists in them.

Behind her apathy runs deeps to a man reminiscent of an oblation-like gesture looking at the heavens while a mischievous gyrating millennial twirls, tumbles and turns in between seats. A ghostly image is portrayed at the back referring to the scary tales that haunt the tall grasses in Matatalaib. Seated in a row before him, another scary apparition mount as a ghoulish man appears wasted or without consciousness while a baby is in deep slumber, unmindful of the ongoing episode around her. The circus has just started. Others performers will follow suit. One wonders where the band is?

A downtrodden farmer stands in solitude reserving his yantok on the last row, a barangay in Mayantok where it came from. In the middle aisle is an allegorical post which morphs a green sugar cane into a cold steel post. This negates how Tarlac has eventually become industrial from once an agricultural lieu.

Showcasing Tarlac’s natural treasures is a man bathing from one of the available pristine waterfalls while a rowdy black cat distracts, a Frog jumps and a Geron bird (for Gerona) gleefully cheers in the window seat. A solitary bat swarms, as if on cued performance, from above. Dead aim at the center is a masquerade masked girl in a grotesque garb staring directly as if enlightening the viewer--this is who we are and what to expect from us--at a glance.

A remarkable plethora of divergent styles co-exist side by side in one fell swoop, debunking any associated art historical classifications. Abound in sheer magnitude this is firsthand looking at the ongoing Tarlac art scene while celebrating the rich and evolving culture these artists belong to. A visual playground flexing the every artistic muscle, this one-way trip is at the height of its vision of capturing present-day Tarlac exuding brighter hope for their separate artistic journeys for the long haul.

11.11.16

Judeo Herrera: Pain, Pleasure and Punditry

Tall Tarlac Tales: Recent Works of Herrera, Ramos and Yokte

Jay Bautista

(First of three parts)

Ginintuang Pangarap Series

Among the proud eight rays of the Philippine sun in our flag Tarlac has always been at the forefront of our socio-political and economic history. With its strategic geographic location it is now has a unique place given the expressways and nearness to Clark, which is projected to be a bustling green city of the future.

Most of the time Tarlac is simply relegated as a mere stopover to eat or take a leak on your way up to the North; for most people it is that long stretch of McArthur Hi-way or mostly Hacienda Luisita. Despite the concrete structures, dams and floodway dikes, the city is bland as the lahar desert remnant of the Mt. Pinatubo fury of 1991. Compared to nearby provinces Tarlac has more artists and practitioners than all the artists in the north combined. Having the only fine arts institution, it is also home to award winning artists and art practitioners. Yet it is void of art spaces as venues of the art reflecting the soul of its community.

With the bareness of the physical and cultural landscape the disparity in life can be from within. This is where Bukal intervenes as it deems to create that critical dialogue of what is Tarlac for those who wish to be part of the conversation. Bukal meaning “boiling or in the verge of something,” in the local parlance, three artists step up the plate and offer some of the purest and relevance expressions emanating here.

Judeo Herrera: Pain, Pleasure and Punditry

Anatomy has always been the true test for an artist; how well versed he draws parts of the human body to every viewer’s appreciation or fellow artists’ respect. How he uses this skill to his advantage marks his brilliance. Judeo Herrera could have easily given to the lure of enticing erotica or commercial portraiture to his advantage however he chose to paint only the essentials—face, arms and limb--contextualizing them in a quagmire of fiery pegs against the repeating cycle of poverty of the spirit. With these images he captures the purest emotions in a visual style simulating the figurative with the textured abstract.

No Way Out

One could easily get unease or even slighted in Herrera pieces. In his Bukal Series, he focused on the face as the foreground of deep sadness, anger and anguish. For Herrera knows his timing and rhythm well like a director on cue he captures the moment, the turning point his subjects who at the brink of emotion, at the brim of madness and frustration in a fitting release. Without beginning or end we are led to a hypnotic whirlpool of desperation in Lulong, anxiety in Aaahh and even eminent death
such as

Hand Gesture Series

Huling Hantungan. No Way Out is a brutal climax that initiated from isolation and rootlessness. How the eyes shut by instinct with the hand shaped liked a gun pointed at one’s crown of consciousness. Even without sound one could hear the wailing of this hapless mother in Tama na, Sobra Na.

Herrera starts by creating his textured base. The endless swirl of the background it is the abstraction that dictates the emotion. The intensity of his swirl, against banality of stainless gray of one’s soul, there is no beginning and ending, one could get tangled in deeply rooted helplessness.

His brilliance lies in his astounding compositions and color combination he aptly calls the colorless soul. The colorless soul is Herrera’s take on how inner being responds to challenges. What emanates is a bluish flesh-and-bone belief of no local color. Despite the prevalence of hyperrealism Herrera abhors soft peach-like skin choosing to do it on his own steel-like colors connoting toughness and fearless numbed by what life throws at us.

Tama Na, Sobra Na

Evoking bluish in hue a sense of solitude and serenity suggesting inner emotions, Herrera expresses his ideas and narratives in his use of figures and matching textures and gestural strokes. The warm fiery colors in the background suggest intense burning sensations, waiting and wanting to burst out.

Honed by continuous craft and versed with experience among his art students, Herrera commands respect. If Bukal Series is pure angst then Ginintuang Panaginip Series sooth the tired battered spirit. It is Herrera’s song of redemption the calming effect exudes of better things to come. For simple folks living in the province sleep could represent many things, it is a fitting reward after a hard day’s work. It could be the act of dreaming something big. When one is golden it could mean of value.

Ginintuang Pangarap Series

For Herrera sleep is a temporary refuge and a way to momentarily escape life’s reality. One’s sleep is a blessing for we have equanimity when we are able to reset our body for the next day’s offering. We envy an infant's slumber which is a golden moment where there are no complications of the world around him. Our aspirations are often our dreams and in this refuge we somehow experience our heart's desire, yearning for that volatile false euphoria.

The intensity of his swirl is again reflected against banality in Hand Gesture Series.

Without uttering a word, even in its minutest detail, gestures convey the message in its fullest form. Certain movements suggest specific emotions. The sense of touch has a very strong psychological power that it directly impact our feelings; it can suggest a variety of sensation like a simple tap on the shoulder that tells you “well done” ; a warm hug that tells you “ I care”; an open palm that suggests “I need help” and many other. In fact the clenched fist showing solidarity has helped our current president simplify his cause for the needs of the Filipino people.

Bukal is ongoing at the Museo ng Probinsya ng Tarlac.

28.5.15

Tarlac Artists: Serious Play

Judeo Herrera

BY JAY BAUTISTA |

The need to understand the contemporary practice in Philippine art has always been the burden of the young. Emphatic assortment of paints on top of one another made more evident by their predominant metaphors reflected in their experimental yet distinct, confident yet sensitive brushstrokes. Playground weaves all these assumptions not merely as a conscious interlude of colors, illustrations and other media but something that originally perceived in their fragile/fertile imagination. Newly initiated in the art scene however these artists have already been recognized in national art competitions for their promising visual language and in finding novel approaches in painting.

Fernando Ramos

Defiance to the norm and piercing its persistence in memory have always been rooted in this unobtrusive Central Luzon province. The continuous wandering of the aetas that dwell along its streets is a blatant reminder of negligence yet one’s constant exposure is reminiscent of their pure and simple precolonial ways. The long McArthur highway is witness to rebellion to another colonial rule that tested our inner core in the infamous Death March. Some even lived to experience life more painful than death to this day.

It is not only the geography that veers Tarlac from Manila. Less than 3 hours and 107 kilometers away by road travel, Tarlac directly manifests the disparity in directions concerning the Philippine art scene. With only an aging museum to speak of, there are neither art galleries nor art spaces abound. Ironic as it is paintings on canvases have found their way of conducing what is already lacking in the society. A visual critique thrives in an abundance of newly found expressions on how these emerging artists look at themselves and their communities.

Alfredo Baluyot

In Alfredo Baluyot’s silent yet haunting pieces shout the loudest meanings. Desperation marked by insensitivity of the powers-that-be Baluyot succumbs to his rants to ease his numbness to anger and deceit. Decay seeps in fluid-like strokes capable to overreaching the viewer to sympathize in this decreasingly bleak plight.

Chrisanto Aquino

On scratched canvas Chrisanto Aquino pays tribute to that dying breed of indigenous people dislocated by political reality. Against the advent of superfluous technology, their precolonial culture threatened into extinction. Aquino further hones his artistry by dwelling on long forgotten patterns inked on their tribal skin.

Abstraction in its purest form occupies Fernando Ramos whose works are more autobiographical in nature. His choice of colors coalesce his ever-changing moods sometimes too heavy eliciting texture in capturing its weariness. Staining real gold makes the canvases more ethereal than usual. Ironically he does not find it romantic at all whatever it is that whimsically deals directly with his emotions.

Elle Simon-Yokte

Elle Simon-Yokte is another artist that freshly dabbles in non-representational rendition. Although glimpses of figures still forebode she further induces more layers to thicken the plot typifying happiness and confidence within her.

Judeo Herrera engages in deep nostalgia by waxing realism with abstraction in a prolific visual style his own. Herrera starts off by splattering colors as the background he favors. After the expressionist nature of this under painting he then deciphers what images will emerged eventually dictating the current themes of his thoughts. Here we find a bygone child’s play and bevy of horses in tipsy amusement or locked in symbol of their strength in character.

Wiljun Magsino

Wiljun Magsino simplifies as he reminisces his childhood in black and white. Uniquely done by using stapler instead of paintbrushes he primes his canvases either black or white canvas and reversely tucks the wires depending on his chosen subjects. This tedious process challenges him in achieving a pen and ink effect. What he can still do with such steely art form is a promise that awaits us.

As it is Playground is as literal as literary resistance of provincial artists hobnobbing in the city. These manifestations confront validation as their own inherent contents and permutations stressing the value of spontaneity, appropriation and positive energy. Establishing tension, solitude and equilibrium, these spatial yet lyrical pieces may be subtle or harsh yet both convey the sense of delight in the painters’ free reign of imagery and visual style. One looks long and hard as each art intensifies. Depending how one would come to view the collective significance of Playground, their personal to randomly induce varied perceptions are commendable.

Playground encourages critical dialogue between the discriminating tastes of the patronizing public with the creative ambition of this current crop of Tarlac artists. As they are open to experimentation and more raw approach in art, they still value that paintings should be embodied and its social function is not lost in the art market discourse or painting for painting sake. Assuring a hopeful bright direction, Playground devotes a different attitude, a refreshing way of looking at visual arts. It is an undertaking that may enrich your lives as it has indeed on them. Sometimes seriousness is fun.

29.3.11

A Colorless Soul for Judeo Herrera

BY JAY BAUTISTA |

“The sad plight of farmers compromising whatever is left to our agricultural sector in their farm lands only to be laborers on a daily wage earner is a cause for alarm. Not only did they left their families as well as their fields become untended but their dignity is tarnish as they struggle hard in a jungle of a city where there are no trees but of concrete as gray as decay of their existence.”

Thus wrote Judeo Herrera of his monumental work entitled Konkretong Gubat ng Mga Pangarap which was his entry in the recent Tanaw: National Art Competition of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

Konkretong Gubat ng Mga Pangarap

Ongoing at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, unfortunately the work is not among those hanged. And the exodus of farmers leaving his hometown is at an alarming rate prompting him to paint such predicament.

It is a welcome respite or one may even be grateful that Judeo has never left his roots in Tarlac. He represents all those non-Manila-based and non-Fine Arts school educated painters who try to break into the Philippine contemporary art scene. His staying put in his hometown may have some good vibes after all. Personally what Judeo offers is a fresh perspective, one whose brushstrokes may be more organic than the temporal contemporariness of the art spaces and the genre works in the galleries in the malls.

Contrary to its limiting nature, for him joining art contests with themes provides for Judeo the most liberating act there is. You really can’t separate the images of Tarlac from his works as it has always been his playground as his work represents how he approaches whatever grim matter there in his hometown with a fresh perspective. His style may be too blatant, as one both versed with realism and abstraction, he seems quite obsessive with his splats of paint and his use of “this ash-like tint” in his works.

From a simple theme of a farmer’s exodus to the city, with an explosion of his sub-conscious lies a certain fluidity which is constant among his images. The foreground is what the subconscious is to the viewer. Judeo is one of the few artists I know who’s well-versed with watercolor and oil-acrylic. This is just the initial mark of his brilliance.

However more than a talented artist that he is, one appreciates Judeo first as a good son. He had to forego his schooling to try out his luck in the KSA as a designer and he has applied his paintings, making each piece unique. Observing him at various phase of his artistry, for someone who has maximized colors early on, the element of this mixture of black and white is a welcome respite. Having worked in Al-Khobar, could he be affected by his short stint in Saudi Arabia had a drab effect on his paint brushes?

He explains further: Keeping in mind the overall appearance na gusto ko lumabas dun sa artwork, I usually start with an abstract background. Yung movements nung texture sa abstract background nagsusuggest nang direction or personality nung subject ko. Having learned decorative art painting sinubukan kong i-apply s artwork ko yung techniques na natutunan ko abroad. Iniiwasan ko gumamit ng skin tone. A friend told me there is no local color, ibig nyang sabihin kahit na anung kulay pwede mo gamitin sa kahit anung bagay. It’s the value that counts.

Heart of Generosity

Kids are always part of Judeo’s initial forays with experimentation. In fact these were his first works using this style. Mothers, you can never get enough of them. Consider Heart of Generosity. Unlike other parents, Judeo was fortunate unlike those other artists who didn’t have mothers to support behind their back.

An Alliance Beyond Culture and Dependence

There is so much wealth of subjects for Judeo than one wonders has he become too personal for comfort. In the Alliance of Beyond the Culture of Dependence proves otherwise, social themes are also part of his consciousness. The pull of nationalism is nothing new to him as he is from Tarlac which is more than just represented as one in the eight rays of the Philippine flag and by an event known as Death March during World War II. An entry at the recent AAP-PAF, one would think socio-political view he does not prefer the rigid clenched-fist approach to solving poverty. He is more positive in narratives which are visual than symbolic more uses metaphor.

Judeo adds: I’m having fun at my new discovery as if making both non representational and representational painting at the same time. And as I try to enjoy the painting process this is what comes out, if it I like it and it turns out good kaya tinuloy tuloy ko na. The painting itself is composed of layers of paint kaya you really have to be patient na hintayin mong matuyo bago ka pumahid ng panibago. Thus when you will look into it closer mapapansin mo yung details nung pagkakapatong patong ng mga kulay.

Pragmatic

Pragmatic is my personal favorite, about love and its deeper meaning. Casting shadows of airplanes and other material well-off, one aspires to provide for a love one but what if she decides alone to fend for herself and leave him behind? Most especially when one is young and carefree. But what about commitment, dreams of having a together, of one’s talents to new hopes for the country.

Judeo’s works may not even be decorative or described as pretty. What makes these pieces come alive is its narrative is deeply rooted on his experiences channeled through his own artistic terms; from an artist who is not a product of your typical western fine arts degree or from the current city art scene. His not showing commercially does not mean he is not willing tto accept an invitation not to be part of where the action is.

A subject void of color which is almost stainless in effect may not be of sadness or of blandness but of liberation. Judeo’s careful attention to his hues, how colors are well coordinated against his images as his imagery continuously evolves, his involvement digs deeper and his palette becomes more gray in urban treatment.

More than just producing two presidential aspirants during the last presidential elections (if you were in another planet one even made it to Malacañang), Tarlac has been a community of young masters like Judeo are churning out masterpieces as they add to the luster that is Philippine art while painting in the peripheries. It may be off the center, through persistence and dedication, their collective efforts may yet unravel something big and brighter for all of us to see.

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