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.

Jared Yokte: Art In the Era of the One Percent

BY JAY BAUTISTA |


TALL TARLAC TALES: RECENT WORKS OF HERRERA, RAMOS, AND YOKTE


(Last of Three parts)

Some 60 illustrations representing Hayop are situated as walls in a frame by frame presentation greets the viewer. A recurring scene for Yokte who has lived in vibrant cultural cities of Davao, Vigan and now based in Tarlac. An allegory of the archrivals dogs and cats, Yokte often witnesses the fight between them. How the dog would and could defeat the cat as many ways as to skin it. How the dog always wins not by the show of force but by outsmarting it. Done in firm impressionist inkblots these sketches documents for Yokte certain outdoor behavior and inherent character of each domestic creature. Only artists like Yokte can see beauty in the ordinary squabble as such. Painters Ang Kiukok, Danny Dalena, and Onib Olmedo have immortalized daily occurrence as such dogs and cats before him.

In his book Art Power (2009) art critic Boris Groys presents that art either as commodity in the art market or as a political tool for the realization of a vision for the people. Much of what are is produced today is for the galleries and commission-based auction. Not many are producing artworks for the maturity of our consciousness, or expressions of our dreams and aspirations.

Yokte applies his realist language to an installation work Those Leading a happy Life and Those Fighting a Battle to Survive Have Many Things in Common, some 120 figurines are cast in resin. In whatever situation or class you are in life, everyone is fighting their own some kind of battle. As humans we are expected to be kinder than necessary. Showing how humanity can be configured added to the visual impact of the multitude in the curation is commendable.    

Groys defines new Realism as reality as the sum of necessitates and constraints that do not allow us to do what we would like to do or to live as we would like to live. Art manifests what is often lacking in society. Compared to other community of artists who practiced outside Manila like Angono, Bulacan, Iloilo, and Cebu, to be an artist in Tarlac is doubly discriminated by the lack of government support for the arts and the need for private initiatives for legitimate arts paces to showcase art.

Bukal is a kind of revenge against all these mundane circumstances surrounding these artists. Herrera, Ramos and Yokte are stating their artistic claim to survive for other fellow Tarlac artists and the belief that there is such a person. As Bukal presents what is lacking or not normally found in the current contemporary art scene, their art may not match your décor in your living room. They disturb your peace and enable you to appreciate art on a higher social context.

So the next time you come to Tarlac you will stay a little longer. 

Jared Yokte: The Artist as Contrarian

BY JAY BAUTISTA |

The recent third solo exhibition At the Rear There is Something Contrary by Jared Yokte is one long loud sermon. His distinct unskinned images haunt us in our thoughts even after the pieces have been taken down from the walls of blanc Gallery. Mind you it is not exactly a solitary preach by a priest, pastor or what have you. More inclined to that night the adolescent you went home beyond curfew time and your parents were stubbornly waiting as you opened the house lights. Yes this exhibit is that bad that it is so good. Worse, it alters your mindset in looking at contemporary paintings these days.

At the Rear There is Something Contrary

Having been born and bred in Davao City, educated in Vigan and now based in Tarlac Yokte sizzles as the quintessential artist to finely execute these epiphanies. Having been exposed to different variants of local culture from southern to northern Philippines Yokte has somehow imbibed and could comment on that customary sense of we got used to yet not supposedly believing in.

His interiors as backdrops are from his humble abode reflect the kind of exuberant yet bland society we have ever since existed. Not invited guests rather we are like peeping neighbors to one's private tableau as everything happens indoors. It is at home where much of what we know happens even the greater war is waged here—the family.

Theory of Nonsense 1

Our elders inculcate in us that success emanates in being affluent more so if one is working abroad. One gets educated to prepare for the day he boards a ship or a plane to cross to the greener pastures. As clannish as we can be, we look after siblings after us, forced to fend for their schooling, whereas we tend to neglect even our own personal happiness. These stereo-type myths have bothered and even disturbed the peace in Yokte's sensibilities. Even superstitious beliefs, superfluous as they are, are discussed within this realm. Concepts like sukob, pagpag, pasma or sleeping while your hair is wet could make you go blind or crazy. Yokte proposes not in anger but even better he gracefully throws back at you his actuation in his linear and painterly strokes combined. The title piece, At the Rear There is Something Contrary, sees us involved in every movement as his images compose themselves and somewhat paused on canvas. They circle in round formation as the cycle called life rotates.

Theory of Nonsense 2

Theory of Nonsense Series symbolically implodes deeper this thesis in Yokte’s pieces. Composition is Yokte’s stronger elements as he is a master in harmonizing his hues. Personages lie afloat living in the quagmire we deserve. We, the viewer should not be enticed in these time-drawn myths. Inverted umbrellas reveal the reverse reasoning as we are attuned to. Resulting into the kind of broken dreams we are forced by circumstance to accept these false fatuity. As in these paintings, it is as grim as the night that has befallen and an even darker interior void of light. Yokte maybe an animal lover as it seems but these domestic creatures are no different from the kind of beings we have become, or been relegated to.

There is poetry in rendering his cast of characters. A headless man may seem a wounded negation of people eaten by the kind of heartlessness that emanates from our concurrence to what we thought all along as truth. Have we become the kind of children our parents have warned us to be? Only artists like Yokte can create such dormant scenes that feed on life’s imperfections done beautifully. As he investigates into our human condition what he unravels like secrets to a code yields our               uniqueness as it is ironically present in all of us.

When the Cat Fell Out

When the Cat Fell Out debunks that what we chose to blindly submit. Black cats represent impending bad luck whereas a cat can just be born black. Maybe Yokte’s works are even the bigger contrary to what is evidently contemporary art—white canvases featuring personalities as smiling farmers, mother and child, even coy fish on the pond. The presence of black mud-like paint is not to blot the picture but a pun right smack as intended. Being in Tarlac provides his with a vantage point--a way of seeing. He is far yet inside the art scene. Even he can be his own sordid critic.

Counterpole

One can however never get over viewing a Yokte piece. One is unmindful of the time as he was doing them. The gestalt effect that his canvases are bigger than what and how his symbolism applies. At a glance, macabre as it is, each is like rich thick moist chocolate cake with sprinkles for everyone to partake. Such as Counterpole which is a continuing reminder of the ups and downs of life reminiscent of the circus act as in his last show, Mabulaklaking Angkan. Compared to this present crop, whatever these pieces lack in humor accessibility and accessories Yokte made up with much bravura and immensely finer craft--more mature brushstrokes and a serious take on our contemporary culture. I would not be surprised if these solitary creatures will be ready to come closer and bite back at us in his next show. 

Fernando Ramos Jr: Flaunting Life’s Imperfections

BY JAY BAUTISTA |

Faith often comes in the most abstract of expressions and artists like Fernando Ramos have turnaround something out of the ordinary even bordering on the transcendental they only know how—paint them. In his first solo exhibition, Contemplating Ethereal Existence Ramos honors God foremost in his composed yet grand solitary manner.

Soujourn

His materiality dictates whatever mood Ramos is in depending on what he perceives as that transcending value of God’s immeasurable love for humanity should be. Ramos believes artists were blessed with talents as they have a responsibility to perform in society. Eschewing texture he uses palette knife and rodela enabling every stroke as different like the different days where Ramos worked on his pieces. These pieces appear to be more durable, almost rendered in a dream that only Ramos can comprehend their symbolical meanings.

Representing valor in whatever dignified existence life has to offer, Standing Still series beckons to inspire and even encourages persistence in the hope for better things. In a heavy mix of earth-tone hues, Ramos proposes that man who chooses God will always be standing still even if failures and apathy seeps in.

His journey not only as an artist but as a believer is most evident in Sojourn. Reaching the highest altitude of his existence, being he is able to meditate in a wonderful world, the flight of a dreamer in him. The future is still unclear, unimaginable and vague to comprehend but the greatest gift for us is the promise of tomorrow. Sojourn comes with a emanating purpose on this thesis.

Starting with a study or a just a sketch Ramos builds up rhythm like a seasoned jazz player, he improvises yet digs in deeper, straining his modeling paste-in-sand combination. He then fixes silver or gold adding glow to the under paint most likely after he stains the metal layer of his composition.

Whether he renders realist strokes or veers into abstraction transparency of forms and solidity of shapes define the quintessential Ramos. Often employing rhythm and harmony in texture his dimensions draws a thin line in between softness and harshness of rendition yet they carefully controlled and it varies in a certain points to another simply not because they are nice to look at but because they are conceived to do so.   

Scent From A Dream 2

Contemplating Vertical Horizons is how the promise giver is the promise keeper. Always offering a good day God forgives and guides us through His unending and infinite creation. With the daily rigors He brings us back to the light into our battered and stained spirit at his own dedicated time.

With Ramos piece there is never a dull rendition. He meticulously solidifies everything by finishing dust-like coarseness adding a silver leaf and gold leaf here and there. The aesthetics is in the swirl, some from various tin cans, some using masking tapes for loss to take over. Swirling lines storms of life, square is God for always being there.

His paintings are also sensuous variations of collective narratives, memories and dreams. The fascination in metal-like ground and surface in his works is evident, rusted and stained in time. It is metaphorical depiction of this world we live in is paralleled to a slowly decaying, human body that is deteriorating and will turn back into nature’s dust--our ashes.

Ramos moves freely inside the painting as he probes his inner self and explore contours and variations of colors, paraphrasing the world and beyond in less fanciful embellishment or distortion. His thoughts and feelings as an artist are astounded in each of more than a dozen canvases.

On can almost smell his coloration in Scent Recalled From a Dream series which 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.

Not everything is raw and melancholic The Day After the Storm conveys positive vibrations as trials and challenges that make him more human. Like gold that gone through fire to be able see its real shine.

A wise painter that he is, Ramos knows how to rest and recuperate. Resting Ground is a favorite place quiet and serene place a mountain peak repent, pray and meditate his intoxicated body. A habit he often does, he escapes from the humdrum of his material world, he solitary dwells at a mountain’s peak, communing with his God who is more than enough.

The Day After the Storm

Unselfish as the artist he is Ramos is fond of creative accolades here and there. In Under Red Umbrella pays tribute to a dear friend, musician and great mother. An influence in his decision to be a full-time artist, her demise may have left a void but Ramos imbibed her spirit to go forward and reach his potential. Of course umbrella means love, memories and teachings that cannot be erased.

Vista is tribute to Tatang, his mom’s husband. A lawyer writer and man of faith He treated him like a son too. His regular conversations with him were with a purpose, most specially those pertaining to Mount Zion which is biblical definition of heaven, respite for good souls and spirit.

Blue serenade series are Ramos’ most personal paintings in this exhibition. Starting in 2013 being in love with music, remembering the good old days and time gone by. Destiny fate, remembering what God has promised transcending upon him.

Resting Ground

Abstraction in the Philippines has of late taken a back seat given the current art scene’s current infatuation with hyperrealism, auction-bound, emo-ridden parlance. Ramos reclaims whatever is lacking in aesthetics and maybem whatever is left in our poor battered souls.

Fearful of his faith and fate, Ramos ponders in each of these pieces as God has healed and honed him further. He has able him to paint some more in whatever life has to offer. With his hands outstretched in surrender, in these paintings he has emerged healed and unscathed.

About the Artist

Fernando Ramos Jr is an award-wining visual artist. A graduate of Tarlac State University, he has won in ArtPetron National Student Art Competion, Maningning Miclat Art Awards, and the GSIS National Painting Competition. Ongoing at the Art Galileia Contemplating Ethereal Existence is his first solo exhibition.

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.