The art police returns

Two exhibitions that were featured simultaneously in separate spaces at The Drawing Room presented an intriguing study of contrasts. As black and white as their works on paper are, this double act showcased young artists who could not be more dissimilar in terms of style, technical competence and approach.

Body Portraits, a set of nine life-size charcoal figure drawings by Kiko Escora, a recent recipient of the CCP Thirteen Artists Award, was a cautionary tale of how a "Startstruck" career quickly built up by hubris and media hype could just as easily go the way Julian Schnabel’s and E.R. Tagle’s did, if left unchecked.

I am terribly concerned about Escora’s tendency to pull at the lapels of undiscriminating society wags by pandering to middlebrow tastes for salacious, myth-making bonhomie. I would prefer to think, however, that this posturing is not a conscious effort on the part of the artist, but rather, is an offshoot of acclaim sitting tenuously on the shoulders of someone who has been showered with so much, for so little, so soon.

This discomfort with, yet wide-eyed admiration for, celebrity is apparent in Escora’s depiction of anonymous friends – in his own words – as subjects of his "lifestyle portraits." It is apparent that the artist sees himself as being part of this motley crew, and yet, quite curiously, one sees a distance, a gap – as expansive as the blank spaces between and around the figures – because he does not seem to be fully prepared to identify who these people are.

Cut just above the nose, obliterating the eyes – the windows to their essence – these works underscore an uncanny, if somewhat worrisome tendency in art nowadays to dismiss a seeming lack of substance and an overflow of accidents as ends. Here, Escora’s body portraits strike a collective pose from his atelier-factory in true pseudo-Warholian fashion.

Yet it is not just for lack of meaning, or whatever personal relationships – or absence thereof – that the artist very facilely quotes like a true Gen X-er, which leaves these drawings wanting. It is that Escora, quite simply, does not strike me as a very good draftsman. Granted, three of his nudes and semi-nudes, in particular, "Woman in Flared Jeans and Chain Belt," "Woman in Floral Top" and "Man in Leotard" display a certain grace that flows from their structural unity. But sadly, the rest seem to be awkward anatomical affairs, where semblances of weight, muscular tension or resistance dissolve into pastiches of flimsy and limp appendages tacked onto taut torsos. Just look at the utter disproportion of his "Male Nude" and you’ll see what I mean.

Escora’s admirers might adroitly point to these mannerist distortions as intentional, just as say, Elmer Borlongan extends and attenuates for expressive effect. But the visual resonance is totally off; something’s just not working here – if certain body parts, hips or shoulders, for example, are emphasized to make these bodies look completely unreal, why are the others then more believably rendered? The range of flaws and inconsistencies overpower any thought that perhaps the artist is trying to make a major statement. If the cartoon-like half visages propped on these bodies appear as masks, I am afraid that they are there for hiding an inability, at least at this point, to really say very much.

Troy Ignacio’s exhibition titled Disintegrated, on the other hand, made for more satisfying viewing. While the other show pounced unabashedly at you, this set of 15 untitled, very reasonably-priced dry-brush oils on paper whispered thoughtfully, inviting me to look closely at what appeared to be blurred objects or vistas lurking behind smoked glass – hanging light fixtures, a half-opened door, a row of trimmed cypress trees moving towards a vanishing point. I may have been seeing things that were not there; but that was just what made the experience worth my while. It was real. The impact was solid. It made me think. The fact that I had to constantly shift my gaze to remind myself that these were paintings and not out-of-focus photographs assured me that this was an artist of considerable technical competence.

All this doesn’t mean, of course, that Ignacio’s works offer the local art scene anything startlingly new. Hardly. But what I found highly reassuring was seeing a germinating talent whose output displayed skill and aesthetic sense with the utmost humility (read as: without the slightest hint of narcissism).

In closing, let it be said that there is nothing wrong with artists being toasts-of-the-town, "projecting," or just being impudent, loud and brash. Far from it – for where would contemporary art be without Chris Ofili and the rest of Charles Saatchi’s erstwhile YBAs, or our very own David Medalla and Manuel Ocampo? Conversely, being mousy, soft-spoken, self-effacing and deliberate isn’t necessarily the most effective way to disarm the art police.

Being true to oneself – knowing and accepting one’s limitations and working on these, developing and evolving one’s talent by looking outward and inward, tapping into the creative kindle outside and inside – this is what serious art making is all about.

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Ramon E.S. Lerma is the curator of the Ateneo Art Gallery, the first museum of modern Philippine art. For questions, comments and suggestions, write to rlerma@ateneo.edu.