July 2010-- Mia Ongpin Herbosa has a unique standing in the history of Philippine art. Coming from the bloodlines of Jose Rizal and Damian Domingo, she proves with her talent in painting and erudition that the apple has not fallen far from her forefathers’ trees. Her career commenced after graduating from the Ateneo de Manila University in 1991 but it was in the Art Students League in New York that she spent some of her most productive years, learning a range of theoretical and technical skills, bagging major and important student awards and producing some of her more memorable works. Whether in her portraits, nudes or still lifes, Mia Herbosa’s engagement in the act of painting is becoming more discernible, privileging inventiveness over grand statements. In the course of her young and promising career, her art has won her respect, increased recognition and a substantial following, making her one of the more relevant artists of her generation. In this July interview, Mia talks about her schooling and early influences, her training in the Art Students League, her first job, her family life and how living and Manila and New York have helped her in more ways than one.

May 2010--Kitty Taniguchi is among the few female painters who had successfully trespassed upon a male-controlled territory. For the past thirty years, she has faithfully explored themes of femininity and feminine modes of representations that challenge and reinterpret some existing social and cultural conventions. Many of her works are drawn from her own experiences and her portraits of women may be read as the truth, reality, challenges and sufferings of women through centuries of spiritual and physical oppression and even more so her personal struggle to define her own artistic identity. Symbolism likewise pervades in her works  as a way of replacing  traditional representations and to give substance to her content. Kitty Taniguchi tells in this interview the beginning of her artistic career, the sources for her artistic style and production and why her works hold a place in the history of Philippine art.

April 2010 -- In the early years of her artistic direction, Yasmin Sison began experimenting with abstract expressionism. Utilizing a rich knowledge of form and color, her gestural paintings included bright and splashy colors, expressionist interiors and figures that are rob of identity and individuality. What Sison aims to achieve during this phase is to paint subjects that would complement her growing concern with form, space and color. Sison then moved toward representational imagery and has since made a mark with her unflinching portraits of children, capturing them in their sad, happy, curious and playful states as well as their physical and psychological transitions. Over the years, her perceptive reading of her subjects, her strong and polish technique and her ability to connect with the viewers made her works memorable and even disquieting to critics, collectors and her peers. Despite her modest success, Sison continues to foster her budding artist’s knowledge, experience and skills to make way for a more conceptual approach to her works. In this interview, Yasmin Sison tells her rich educational background, her stint as a pre-school teacher, her early years as a member of the group, Surrounded By Water and how she finds joy and freedom in straddling the images of instinctive abstract gesture and representational subject matter in her growing body of works.
 

March 2010--Considered to be one the most hardworking and innovative artists of today, Cris Villanueva Jr.’s works draw ideas from commonplace objects, classical and popular culture, literature, art,  history and his own life. He disregards the non-objective representation of subjects but concentrates instead in creating works of iconic power. In the early stage of his artistic career, he began to introduce a signature style of painting bubble wrap over his finished painting as a layer effect. Cris Villanueva also goes beyond the limits of paintings and can paint “any style and subject I find challenging and interesting.” While his works in the last five years are less serious in tone, many of his exhibited works and those found in private collections reveal his knowledge of art theory and his talent in painterly details. In this interview, Cris Villanueva tells his stint as an art director, his student years as a Political Science major at the Philippine Christian University then as a Fine Arts student at the University of the Philippines, his early years as a member of the Salingpusa and the Madruguada, the two winning works he received from the Philip Morris Art Competition and how these two works have pushed him to go on.

Allan Cameron, the production designer of the 2006 movie,  The Da Vinci Code, starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tatou,  had an interesting task at hand. His job was to recreate the Louvre museum  for Ron Howard’s movie even if they were  given the permission from the Louvre director Henri Loyette to shoot inside the museum itself. 

As he reasoned that they were unable to shine artificial light on the paintings, pour fake blood on the floor or have the actors rip Leonardo da Vinci’s paintings off the wall, Cameron and his crew set about recreating the Grand Gallery on a sound stage in Great Britain.  One of his most challenging task was maintaining the room’s scale. His staff not only photographed every wall in the gallery, they also measured each painting’s frame and its distance from the floor. Cameron also hired James Gemmill to recreate 150 paintings to place on the set by using digital photographs of each work as a base. Gemmil overpainted and glazed each work on aged boards or silk, adding layers of paint to match the craquelure of the originals. “The Mona Lisa itself was almost totally painted from scratch,” says Cameron, adding that his team made three versions to use in multiple takes. “Even the frames took time to accomplish. Some of them were very ornate and had very complicated wood carvings. The gold leaf, burnishing and aging each frame took weeks to finish. We even went far as putting wood-worm holes in them.”

Cameron added that certain parts of the movie were shot inside the Louvre and they were all “military maneuver.” They were extra careful when the lights and cables were carried around so they won’t go anywhere near the paintings. The curator and the Louvre security were there all the time. “To avoid scratching the floor, we used mats, put rubber balls on tripods, and made the bare-bones crew of 15 instead of the usual 150, wear soft shoes." Allan Cameron hopes that while watching the movie, people won’t know which is the set and which is the real Louvre.
 

February 2010 -- While many of the ideas of the young artists today swirled in chaotic orbits, Jose John Santos’ paintings remain simple and fantastic and are always governed by thought. In many of his outputs, he challenges his viewer’s intellect and assumptions about reality by putting forward his subconscious upwellings and conjunctions of seemingly unrelated objects which gives new meanings to many familiar things. His art also juxtaposes the classic and the contemporary (note that even his first two names marry the old and the new), the iconic and the everyday as well as painting and photography. He uses the former to explore how the latter constructs or represents reality. While some collectors proclaim his achievements both truthful and beautiful; others salute his talent as an embodiment of greatness and a token of quality. In this interview, Jose John Santos tells his emergence as a young painter, the phases of his works, his wit and sensibility and why he continues to be one of the most sought young artists of today.

March 2010 -- Artes de las Filipinas is conducting a survey to record the Filipino artists since the seventeenth century to the present day. Each of the entry includes the middle name, place of birth as well as the birth and death year of the painters, sculptors and printmakers. The selection of artists conducted and compiled by Artes de las Filipinas include not only the Old Masters, the National Artists, the contemporary artists but also those who might be less familiar to the art-loving public. Fill in the form below to notify us for entries that need to be included and corrected.

January 2010 -- The art of Igan D’ Bayan is a modern tale of fantasy and domination. It shares many similarities to the works of Tim Burton, Stephen King, Robert Bloch and Alfred Hitchcock whose interests are macabre and quirky-themes, science fictions, mystery, crime and suspense. His noteworthy efforts and trademark of painting ribcages and skeletal bones which can repel and send shudders to viewers sets him apart from his contemporaries as he chooses to focus on painting certain disorders of the skeletal system as well as the psychological problems that live inside the heads. While Igan D’ Bayan’s works in the last five years deal heavily on both fear and fantasy, his style and trademark of interacting light and darkness, subjects being caught between two irreconcilable worlds, slowly gained him approval and recognition. Igan D’ Bayan, in this interview, tells his early life as a musician and writer and his third career as a visual artist.

October 20, 2009 -- EACOMM Corporation hosted a cocktail reception to celebrate the publication of its first book project, Private Collections. Almost three hundred guests turned up at the Isla Ballroom 3 of Edsa Shangri-La Hotel to welcome the release of the limited edition art book and to have it signed by the art collectors.

The audience had a warm and unforgettable moment that Tuesday evening. Artists and distinguished guests from the business, arts and society stood in lines to meet and have a chat with Washington SyCip, Hans Sy, David Consunji, Joey de Leon, Napoleon Abueva, Charlie Cojuangco, Joel Jimenez, Eddie Chua, Patrick Reyno, Mark Villar, Julius Babao, Arsenio Tanco, Jovenal Santiago, Manny Zialcita, Gilbert Santos, Wilmer Hontiveros, Louie Ojeda, Mikee Romero and Alexander Tan, who were recognized and honored that night.

Private Collections is available online and at Fully Booked and Powerbooks.

October 2009 -- Private Collections is a book about private art collecting and collectors in the Philippines published in 2009. It tells the passions and visions of thirty Filipino collectors and follows their tastes in art - whether in the masters or the contemporary.

Written and designed for a general readership, each of the thirty collectors is devoted ten to fourteen pages and contains representative examples of their art collections. Distinguished patrons of the arts and private art collectors covered in this book include George Ty, Hans Sy, David Consunji, Washington SyCip, Joey de Leon, Charlie Cojuangco, Julius Babao, Mikee Romero, Napoleon Abueva and leading businessmen and professionals in the Philippines including Sonny Dominguez, Arsenio Tanco, Jose Maria Esteban, Eddie Chua, Cesar Duque, Manny Zialcita, Saul Hofileña, Ramon Cardenas, Louie Ojeda, Joven Santiago, Gilbert Santos, Joel Jimenez, Manolet Salak III, Wilmer Hontiveros, Joel Butuyan, Alexander Tan, Norman Crisologo, Mark Villar, Patrick Reyno and two other noted female collectors, Ester Gabaldon and Evelyn Dy.

Jamie Camplin is the managing director of Thames & Hudson, a publishing firm based in London, England. He wrote an opinion piece for the June 2009 Art Newspaper that may interest general art readers and museum publishers. Camplin raises the question: if art book publishing is to remain vital, how do we keep producing fresh, thoughtful publications at a reasonable price point? He begins: Is there a crisis in art book publishing? Most people who love art—collectors, gallery-goers, curators, critics, dealers and artists themselves—understandably take it for granted that there is an audience for books about it. There’s a touch of arrogance about this, though an engaging version of arrogance because of the positive emotions involved. If your passion is Greek bronzes or Winslow Homer or Olafur Eliasson, you needn’t worry whether your enthusiasm is shared—unless, of course, you publish art books.

July 2009--In Philippine contemporary art, very few young artists have been the subject of much interest than Ian Quirante, a progressive young artist of his generation, who employs surrealism and automatic painting in his works. Quirante’s treatment of space was not crowded; his compositions encompass the entire picture surface equally in all places and his use of strongly graphic and biomorphic shapes, phantasmagoric and cartoon-like figures all reveal his psychological ideas and personal visions. In this July 2009 interview, Ian Quirante shares his growing up years in Cagayan de Oro, his college years at the University of the Philippines, shifting from one course to another, the early phase of his career as an artist as well as his personal hobbies and interests.

Private art collectors and professionals who wish to explore the world of museums, galleries, archaeological artifacts, relics, and mementos will benefit from the Collections Management Seminar Series of the Yuchengco Museum and the Lopez Memorial Museum.

The series kicks off on June 18 and 19, 2009 with a basic module which is the first of three parts of the Museums Continuing Studies Program. The program aims to develop skills, apply standards, and encourage adherence to internationally accepted standards, policies, and procedures for those managing collections such as museums, galleries, and private and corporate collections.

Take a look at the masterpieces of young Filipino artists. Feel their sentiments. Learn how the environment can inspire human beings, and how humanity can protect the environment through their creations.

Experience Filipino creativity as the Metrobank Foundation showcases to the public the 2009 Metrobank Art and Design Excellence (MADE) semi-finalists in the painting and sculpture competitions, as well as the entries for the architecture and interior design competitions. The public viewing is scheduled on June 5 and 6 (Friday and Saturday), 9 am until 6 pm, at 6F Manila Doctors College, Diosdado Macapagal Blvd., Metropolitan Park, Pasay City.

Metrobank Foundation, Inc., in partnership with the Metrobank Card Corporation, United Architects of the Philippines, Philippine Institute of Interior Designers, Federal Land and BluPrint, is inviting all painters and sculptors, 18 to 35 years old, and all registered architects, 25 to 45 years old, to join the Metrobank Art and Design Excellence (MADE) National Competition.

Interested parties can call the Metrobank Foundation at 898.8856 or the United Architects of the Philippines at 412.6403. Entry forms are available in select Metrobank branches or download at www.MBfoundation.org.ph.

February 2009--Graffiti is from the Italian word graffiato which means scratched. It has a long history that goes back to the figure drawings found in the walls of ancient ruins in  Rome and monuments in Egypt. Since then, the art, style and usage of graffiti has evolved as a means to communicate social and political messages and is linked with punk rock and the hip hop culture. Today, graffiti art is a global phenomenon viewed and opined by young and old alike. In this interview, Hepe, one of Manila’s prolific taggers and a visual artist expresses his bold opinions, narrates the beginning of his interest and tells how tagging has been a driving inspiration in his artistic career.

February 2009 - Two months short of its fourth anniversary, Artesdelasfilipinas.com is proud to launch its new layout. The site has been reogranized for better article categorization. The new site aims to offer new features in the coming weeks such as a search engine and options to print, email or bookmark an article. Artes de las Filipinas renews its partnership with EACOMM Corporation for providing us its award-winning DO-CMS Content Management System for the new site.

The site has been designed not to break any existing links to previous articles. However, if something has been overlooked and you encountered a broken link ,please notify us at info@artesdelasfilipinas.com so we may act on it right away. 

Artes de las Filipinas
Web Development Team

January 2009 -- It has become a commonplace in contemporary art that a work has to be compositionally busy or wisecracks in a variety of forms. In Roma Valles' case, her technically ambitious but masterfully works, much of whose content seems to be an exploration of her personal history, proves that command in technique is never forsaken as it is one of the qualities she knows that endures. While her art is viewed as mellow and conservative, it is never sheltered from contemporary art. They are gorgeously sensual, thoughtful and powerful which gradually won her substantial following and inclusion in important exhibitions. In this interview, Roma Valles talks about her student years, her influences, her method in painting, her family, her interests and the joys of being a mother and an artist at the same time.

December 2008 - - Costantino Zicarelli belongs to the new generation of artists whose paintings are difficult to like but harder to ignore. His art differs from the standards as he chooses to paint the deviant and morose. With his art, Costantino Zicarelli hopes to change how viewers look with disfavor and antipathy paintings that are not eye candies. His works reflect his belief that an artist must be bolder in his stance and subjective feelings and emotions must be given priority than reality or nature objectively. In this interview, Costantino Zicarelli talks about his art, his boredom with his brief stint as a graphic artist, his way to success and his views and adventures as a young artist.

OCTOBER 2008 Alvin Villaruel belonged to that generation of young artists who excites and intensifies the Philippine contemporary art. He began his career in 1998 after receiving his diploma from the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts. He re-introduced the idea of photo-paintings as well as smudges and blurs in his works. A decade later, he made a mark as a young painter eventually becoming one of the leading artists of his generation. In this interview, Alvin Villaruel talks about his struggles, his early beginnings, his joys and sentiments and the activities that young artist like him goes through in the early stage of their careers.

Amidst the concrete jungle in the middle of the city of Caloocan, amongst the smog of pollution, stands the dignified figure of Andres Bonifacionational hero, Founder of the Katipunan, Father of the Filipino Nation, the great plebeian who spearheaded the Filipino revolution against the Spaniards. The Bonifacio Monument is mute, but Bonifacios eyes made of bronze were shouting, reminding us for a moment to stop from the gray and frenzied hurly-burly of city life, and reflect on the greatness of the "Supremo." Andres Bonifacio (b. 30 November 1863, d. 10 May 1897), was a self-taught orphan who became a theater actor and an employee of two international companies in Manila.

Emmanuel Garibay was born on November 23, 1962 in Kidapawan, North Cotabato by a father who worked as a pastor in a Methodist church and a mother who worked in the city engineers office. His family moved to Davao city where he spent a secure and happy childhood. In 1968, then only six, Garibays mother provided the earliest significant encouragement for his artistic talent. His work even as a young boy showed a grasp of human character, particularly of soldiers. "Young boys are always fascinated with men in uniform," he says. "I then went to a phase of doodling robots, tanks, and make-believe characters." He recalls with great relish as a child growing in Davao that he was taken in by the awe of owning a bicycle. The bicycle spelled freedom and fun that took him around the neighborhood and the lakes with his friends. The young Garibay would always set off on his bicycle and pedalled up the drive with his friends to explore new places and meet new people. "I love Davao," he muses, describing it as "charming and wild in so many senses of the word."

The book is about Marcosian Architecture. The author started each chapter with quotes from different scholars as an introduction to his discussions. The book is very much influenced by Michel Foucaults discourse on power and knowledge. Lico says that Marcos regime recognized the nexus of architecture and society, its potential for influencing the community, and wielded this weapon to promote the aesthetics of power in the built form. The book seeks to contribute to theoretical work on the relationship between architecture and power. It documents some of the socio-historical dimensions of the Marcos regimes major architectural accomplishments which include the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Folk Arts Theater, PHILCITE, Philippine International Convention Center, Philippine Trade Pavillons, Tahanang Pilipino (Coconut Palace), and the Manila Film Center. Through this book, Lico hopes to generate awareness of the unrecognized power of architecture.

The two hundred and sixty-three pages of the coffee table book, Philippine Ancestral Houses, is a richly illustrated history and analysis of the bahay na bato - - how it came about, where, when, and how it did. It explains its architectural evolution and why particular architectural ideas occurred. There are several other authors who have discussed the same subject: (Gilda Cordero-Fernando (1978), Felice Sta.Maria (1983) but a reader could easily gain a strong understanding of the fascinating and challenging subject from Zialcita and Tinios book, which describes Philippine bahay na bato architecture in twelve chronological chapters. Zialcita and Tinio successfully provided a framework of a Filipino architecture and it guides the reader to evaluate the influence of its foreign ancestry (Baroque, Gothic, Spanish Renaissance, French, Italian), the environment, and the materials available during those times. It also provided the readers the basis for understanding the never-ending search for an authentic Philippine architectural style.

Landscape artists invariably have a love of their environment and this is clearly seen in the works of young artist, Adler Llagas. The rolling hills and mountains of Rizal and Laguna figure largely in his works. The yellow rice fields and the mountains are his favorite subjects as his childhood memories are full of details that chime again and again with these imageries that is almost like a story found in fairy tale books. "Ang palayan ang aming naging palaruan, (The rice fields became our playground.)" he begins. Born on June 12, 1977 as the son of a poor farmer living in a small village alongside the rice fields in Baras, Rizal, the young Adler grew up in a rather huge family with nine other siblings. He was the ninth child and fifth son of Delfin and Caridad, whom Llagas describes as "the most hardworking and persevering people I know." Llagas recalls that his family was in tremendous financial difficulties that they were all asked to help in the field and become farmers at their young age. "Di kami katulad ng ibang bata, kailangan kaming tumulong sa magulang para magsurvive. Mahirap ang buhay namin sa bukid talaga, (We were not like other kids. We need to help our parents in order to survive. Our life in the farm was difficult.)" he said.

Film actor, scriptwriter, and visual artist, Raul Arellano gives voice to the tumultuous emotions of many artists troubled by the war and the deeper feelings that remain with us all throughout life. From lovers intertwined to naked bodies of a family to a man in bondage, Arellanos works reflect the different aspects of who he really is. His willingness to break new grounds is his most precious gift. Incorporating his own ideas and experiences has given him a work that is uniquely his own. Now based in Los Angeles, California, he is starting to make his mark with works that certainly do not pass unnoticed but the gaze and soul of those who stop to observe them. Nearly all of his works are open to multiple meanings and rich in specific messages. Each work is open to the personal reflection of the viewer who is being pulled to give a voice and meaning to each individual creation.

BALAYAN, the name of an old town and of vast province Batangas in 1581, which has been figured out here as the center of the ancient country Mai-I, is probably derived from Bai or bai i.e housethe tagalog term bai for the Batangas area was replaced by the Visayan people under the leadership of Datu Balensucla and Datu Dumagsil in the middle of the 13th century, as told in tradition or in the Maragtas. The old province of Batangas from Balayan to the far eastern region in Laguna including part of Camarines Norte was the most prosperous and civilized area in the Philippines. When the Spaniards first came, Nasugbu, Balayan, Batangas, Taal, Cavite, Bacoor, Pasig, Marikina, Cainta, Nagcarlan, Lilio, Pilar, Bai, Pangil, Majayjay, Paracale, etc. were the first towns and centers of commerce and industries in the island.

Beautiful flowers of scarlet red adorn her from head to toe. Big, round, expressive dark eyes govern her proud head and a red stiff tail enhances her powerful back. A small horse; my first taka toy I received from my father. A work of art and a loving gift from a Paetenian. Paete, Laguna is one of the Philippines last remaining artistic strongholds and may be accessed either by passing through the picturesque zigzag of the Eastern Rizal route or through the long stretch of the South Luzon Expressway. The town is known for two things: fine woodcarvers and the golden sweet fruit of lanzones. Paete, Laguna is one of the Philippines last remaining artistic strongholds and may be accessed either by passing through the picturesque zigzag of the Eastern Rizal route or through the long stretch of the South Luzon Expressway. The town is known for two things: fine woodcarvers and the golden sweet fruit of lanzones.