Jerson Samson's World is a Cramped, Busy World

BY MADS BAJARIAS | Jerson Samson's "Ikatlong Mundo" (Third World) is a jam-packed warts-and-all snapshot of urban Filipino families living, loving, playing and making-do in cramped conditions. Samson combines a "Where is Waldo?" obsessiveness with wry observations of Pinoy household scenes where religious piety and family togetherness are cherished and the concept of personal space is virtually nonexistent. This work is being exhibited in ultra-cool Singapore and it makes me wonder how anyone who grew up in a tightly-regulated and efficiently-run nation will view this termite hill vision of third-world reality where things seem to be on the brink of chaos and disorder, but stop short of becoming shambolic and dysfunctional.

While my curiosity for how Singaporeans will interpret this work rages, I have no doubt that for the casual Pinoy art enthusiast, this work makes for fun viewing. I always look for three things from pictures like this:
1. The giant wooden rosary hanging on the wall.
2. The giant wooden spoon-and-fork hanging on the wall.
3. The wall decor which shows miniature bladed weapons from around the Philippines.

When I find any of those three telltale signs, then I know that the artist is really Filipino!

Samson shows a keen anthropologist's eye for Pinoy street-level dynamics and household bric-a-brac. There is no hint of moral judgment from the artist, just a lucid recitation of observable facts on canvas.

Maybe for some, this is a worrying picture of rampant overpopulation; of humans gobbling up space and resources for themselves ("How can you live like that?"). Are these mere creatures mired in the quotidian? Content to feed and copulate and raise their young, with no higher aspirations whatsoever? People whittling their time on petty matters? Are these just bodies occupying space? A nation of ant-like beings who have collectively achieved nothing of importance to benefit the rest of the world?

Or is this a picture of contentment? A lively presentation of people who may not enjoy the best luxuries that modern life has to offer, but derive comfort and joy from being around loved ones. Maybe this image shows that what matters most is being around people and pets they care about no matter how difficult the living conditions may be? ("You Filipinos are so cheerful!"). Humble folk with simple needs who are tolerant and civil to each other given difficult circumstances? Maybe that is enough achievement?

"Ikatlong Mundo" will be on show at Utterly Art Singapore until September 7.

Now, can you find the giant wooden fork on the wall?

Samson's work reminded me of a post-Olympics report which seeked to answer the question: Given the size of its human population, why isn't India winning more Olympic gold medals? It makes for an interesting read, and insights from India's ongoing struggle to get more Olympic golds may also help us find ways to improve our own Olympic campaigns.

Melvin Culaba's Girl Will Not Be Ignored

MADS BAJARIAS | Melvin Culaba's "Keychain" doesn't reveal its secrets easily. One has to think long and hard before the subtle symbols that Culaba has planted throughout the canvas begin to reveal themselves.

Luckily for us, when Culaba exhibited "Keychain" in Singapore's Forth Art Gallery, Utterly Art's Keng Hock got to meet and talk with the artist and gained valuable insight into this artwork.

Keng Hock on "Keychain":

Melvin Culaba's "Keychain" is replete with symbology and meaning.

For instance, the child is Japanese-Filipino. Circles, which bring to mind the Rising Sun, are scattered throughout the painting. The girl sits on a garden chair with a circular backrest. Near her feet is one of those newfangled tops that emit a laser light when spinning. On the upper left of the painting is another round object (I've forgotten what it's supposed to be!). Her slippers are decorated with cherries, another oblique reference to cherry blossoms, a symbol of Japan.

A Doraemon keychain dangles from her left hand—an object that mirrors her own strangeness—as she sits awkwardly in her seat. The keychain is a throwaway and disposable object, a demeaning description that children of mixed race often have to struggle against.

Her mixed race tags her as an outsider—a strange alien—wherever she is, a view reinforced by the strange and weird Pokemon pair perched precariously on the ledge on the upper left corner of the painting.

Maybe her outsider status among children has forced her to toughen up and hold the world at bay with a gaze that is both fearless and mistrustful?

Even if one doesn't get into the symbology, "Keychain" still commands the viewer's attention due to the sheer intensity of its execution. While Culaba plants his symbols in subtle ways, his composition, brushwork and colors show a directness and boldness of purpose. A fierce intelligence permeates the work. It doesn't just hang there, it sort of confronts you in an aggressive way. It's forceful nature demands attention.

Reynold Dela Cruz and How Pinoy BoysAre Turned Into Men (Snip! Snip! Ouch!)

MADS BAJARIAS | In the always lively Forth Art Gallery website, I came across the folksy and funny “Libreng Tule (Free Circumcision)” by Reynold Dela Cruz.

Dela Cruz is a Pinoy painter who won the Juror’s Choice prize at the 1998 Philip Morris Philippine Art Awards. Since then, he has had his paintings exhibited in galleries around Asia and in the USA. Recently, he was commissioned to paint a mural for the Muntinlupa City Government building. Not bad for a self-taught artist.

In Dela Cruz’s four feet by eight feet painting, we see what used to be a common sight in the Philippine countryside during the Lenten season—9 to 13-year-old boys anxiously waiting for their genitals to be (without anesthesia!) slashed with a razor and cut by a pair of scissors wielded by the manunuli—the, um, circumciser.

Every Black Saturday (never on Good Friday for superstitious reasons), shorts come off and shirts are lifted all over the Philippines as boys queue up to face their ultimate fear. In what may be the most chilling aspect of the entire ritual: The boys must watch how the manunuli cleans his blade and scissors by wiping off the blood with tissue paper and spritzing the blades with rubbing alcohol. As the boys get nearer the front, they will begin to see more clearly the blood specks on the cutting board. Oh mommy!

This circumcision ritual is something like a nightmarish episode of Fear Factor as dreamed up by a crazed Freudian analyst with a phallic-mutilation fantasy. It's terrifying, but when the procedure is done and the wound is healed, everyone gets to laugh about it.

Make no mistake, circumcision is darn painful. The mere thought of a razor blade near your privates is enough to make one squirm. Eons of evolutions have chiseled a basic commandment onto our mammalian brains: genitals and sharp objects don't go together. One of the boys in the queue has a bottle of gin to dull the pain. Another one has peed over himself. And of course, there’s always the oldest one in the bunch, and the butt of jokes among those gathered.

Pinoy society cruelly demands that no matter how old you are, you are not a man until you are circumcised, and the proud fighting cock at the manunuli’s feet tells us this.

Across the cock is a Flintstones doll which perhaps symbolizes that it is through the measured application of pain and humiliation that boys are turned into men and savages become civilized. The falling leaves bring to mind the guava leaves which were traditionally chewed and applied to the wound as a disinfectant.

Lastly, the sign which say "Libreng Tule" is a comic touch. While this sign is welcomed by cash-strapped parents, it brings sheer terror to boys around the country. Whenever the sign "Free Circumcision" appears in town, it means that soon a group of mortified boys will make that transition to manhood. Whether they like it or not. Ouch!

I’m not sure how the funny connotations of Pinoy male ritual circumcision will be received in more politically-correct quarters of the globe given the uproar over ritual female circumcision in some parts of Africa.

But Pinoys, especially those who grew up in the barrios and were circumcised old school-style with no anesthesia will certainly respond to Dela Cruz's painting with wide grins: Been There, Done That (accompanied by a slight squirming in the groin while thinking, Thank God I Don't Have To Go Through That Again!).

[Much thanks to Keng-Hock Pwee and Reynold Dela Cruz for their generosity of spirit]