Badon is back, but he never really left

Philipp Brita Badon is one of the more successful Filipino contemporary artists because of his original, expressionistic-fauvistic art style and his distinctly BADON’s signature faces and figures that give peculiarity and expression to his subject. His bold strokes of pure, intense colors are always bordered by outline, which characterizes his work.

His recent abstract works, on the other hand, show his splashes of intense colors that have been his signature style since he first made his mark in the art scene in 1981 in his first one-man show. The intensity of the color palette of his paintings also represents the colorful life in his artistic career.

Starting in 1981 up to the present, Philipp has done over 40 one-man shows locally and internationally. After typhoon Ondoy destroyed their ancestral house in Quezon City in 2009, he briefly lost touch with the general audience but did not totally hibernate from the art scene when he moved to Paranaque in 2010. His market became limited and he was selling his works only to a handful loyal art collectors to be able to sustain his art making and to raise funds for the organizations that need help through his art.

He even dedicated a fundraising one-man show Isang Daan to the Yolanda typhoon victims in collaboration with the SM Foundation in December 2013 and donated the proceeds of his sold-out one man show in Doha, Qatar in alliance with the 15th Asian Games Cultural Exhibits with Ambassador Begonia at the helm. He was always a frontrunner art donor in many of his friends’ fundraising art shows. Philipp continues lending a hand as well to Red Cross, Rotary Club, 700 Club and the UNICEF through his art.

He has become enterprising when several years ago, he came up with a limited-edition adult coloring book titled Color Me Badon and the limited-edition Badon bags, Badon shirts and Badon pillows and tapestries that he sold exclusively to dedicated collectors and followers.

Art and COVID

Art business was good, and Philipp continuously became a household name in the art world; until the year 2020 when the world was stricken with the dreaded COVID-19, which turned the whole world at a standstill. Everybody was bewildered as millions collapsed around the world. For Philipp, his world was about to explode thinking how he and his wife would be able to provide their finances, paintings and art being non-essential.

However, instead of just sulking in his studio, he decided to focus his emotional outburst through his art pieces, which turned out to be a therapeutic one. Being a homebody, Philipp didn’t have a hard time going back to reality; not anymore reacting to the sudden stillness of the community around him and the gravity of the pandemic that was happening. The emotional expressions he had were transformed into beautiful art pieces.

The pandemic inspired him to create and experiment with different genres of art. The disaster somehow turned him to be more focused, innovative, and creative. He even exhibited a series of abstract expressionism (AbEx) collections which he titled Pandemic Art Burst. He once again felt energized and excited that worldwide adversity could turn him to be more productive. Pandemic sales followed, trickles in the beginning but surprisingly, people turned to art to return to normalcy, and Philipp’s colorful saga continued.

Fast forward to the post-pandemic era, Philipp is now more visible to most of his past collectors, visiting his showroom who were initially requesting for COA (certificate of authenticity) only to find them buying a few more pieces of the Art Burst series and the Badon’s signature distinct style; not to mention his most recent experimental art, “objet d’art”.

Badon’s style, which is identified with his pecan faces and soulful eyes, has been commonly drawn into comparisons — rightly or wrongly — to early Picasso without the dark mood but with a splash of Fauvistic-Matisse colors. His early style in art is surrealism, has social relevance, made art critics recognize his work and eventually was appreciated overseas, too, even if he shifted to his original signature style of expressionism and fauvism integrated with the Philippine perspective.

Badon cracked the Hollywood art circle when Tom Hanks, Diana Ross, and Roberta Flack became his clients after his works were exhibited in New York. In Manila, among his clients include government officials, politicians, young professionals, millennials, Gen Zs, local celebrities and showbiz personalities. The most recent is the Hamilton actor who visited his studio and bought several pieces. Of course, my friends know that I am a fan of Badon. A Badon mural decorates the facade of my house.

Born in Quezon City, on Sept. 18, 1957, Badon finished high school and college at the University of the East (UE) in Manila. From a young achiever art student, art teacher, advertising artist, gallery curator, and manager, Philipp’s colorful world belongs to his art, the art that he continues to develop and explore.

Philipp has had more than 40 one-man shows in Manila, Australia, New York, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Boston, and Qatar (as the sole Philippine representative artist in an Artists Village when Qatar was the host of the Asian Games). He has participated in more than a hundred group shows around the country and in Australia, New York, Pasadena, and San Jose, California, USA.