This year’s awardees are Ronald Anading, Jeho Bitancor, Mariano Ching, Lena Cobangbang, Daniel Coquilla, Luisito Cordero, Lyra Abueg Garcellano, Eugene Jarque, Jayson Oliveria, Gary-Ross Pastrana, Yasmin Sison-Ching, Maria Cristina Valdezco and Jevijoe Vitug.
They were selected by the panel of judges composed of past Thirteen Artists awardees Brenda Fajardo and Sid Gomez Hildawa (also the head of the CCP visual, literary and media arts department); Ateneo Art Gallery curator and STAR Arts & Culture columnist Ramon Lerma; and Finale Gallery’s Vita Sarenas.
According to Hildawa, this year’s batch is in a class of its own. The chosen artists do not fall into "the traditional categories of drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, film and such." These guys are not driven by what sells in the art market. Instead, they follow their own eccentric muses. It is interesting to note that many of this year’s awardees are products of artists-run and alternative galleries such as Surrounded by Water, Big Sky Mind, Future Prospects, and Green Papaya Art Projects.
Ronald "Poklong" Anading, also one of the three winners in this year’s Ateneo Art Awards, creates works that focus on "media as phenomena of transfers and transformations."
Jeho Bitancor’s paintings are expressionistic takes on urban decadence. For his exhibit at the CCP, Bitancor created a huge painting called "Memento Mori." According to the artist, it an example of his "preoccupation with disaster and what constitutes a disaster." The work is his observation on a worsening environmental situation. "Man’s greed always results in destruction," says Bitancor.
Mariano Ching works in "layers where he conjures up a transcendence of image and meaning." He deals with symbolic images that are open to interpretations, as well as cute but profound pieces. "When I was in UP, palakihan ng canvas. But for the past several years, I’ve been doing small works. I want the viewers to take a closer, more intimate look at the artwork."
One of Lena Cobangbang’s most memorable works is "Blue Film Love" in 2000 for the project "Who Owns Women’s Bodies?" which featured blue-toned stills of a fake porno flick.
Daniel Coquilla presents a bird’s eye view of city life with images of isaw and people posing as if for an existential photo-op. For his exhibit at the CCP, he created a triptych inspired by his observations on activities during the ‘Ber months. His "Photo Op" makes use of sticker paper placed beside the painting not just to extend the artist’s visual space, but also to show how figures (on the sticker paper) want to be part of the scene in the painting.
There is something strangely beautiful about Luisito Cordero’s artworks of shape investigators, abstract swirls, icons such as Christ and Mao, as well as superheroes made out of shit. His paintings peppered with irony and humor make viewers confront the fact that "something smells funny in the bowels of history."
Lyra Abueg Garcellano is preoccupied with cultural misconceptions and the role of women in society. For the CCP exhibit, the artist has created plaster casts of bullets juxtaposed with images of shooting victims, and as collected sewage water from all over Metro Manila.
For the CCP exhibit, Eugene Jarque used acid in creating his artworks. He explains, "Naghahanap kasi ako ng bagong medium na magagamit. Nakatira kami dati sa lumang building na metal na corroded na. Naisip ko gamitin ’yung image ng corrosion para sa art ko. ’Yung pangit sa iba ay puwede palang isabit sa gallery." The artist describes his method: you pour the acid on the aluminum surface and then run like hell.
Jayson Oliveria is a post-postmodern artist. He takes seemingly random objects and redefines them by the sheer act of redirection. For his recent show at Galerie 7, Oliveria said, "The paintings are like inside jokes, visual puns, as if reversing the roles of the brain and the ass."
Another artist I admire (along with Luisito Cordero and Jayson Oliveria) is Gary-Ross Pastrana.
For his installations in Manila and Japan, Pastrana created a mandala using birdseeds and then let birds loose inside the gallery. For a past exhibit at the CCP, he dug a hole on the backlot of the Cultural Center, and then transported the dirt into the exhibition space. This is his comment on "the relationship of archeology and digging." He asks, "Why should we always look for the truth in the past in order to define who we are at present?" For the artist, the act of displacement of dirt was a pointless exercise.
For another installation, Pastrana tore out pages from a dictionary he had as a boy, and made leaf-like formations out of them. The work is titled "The Fall of Meaning."
Yasmin Sison-Ching experiments with the "layering of surfaces with her paintings and collages, and the inherent dimensions of things with her installations." The artist says, "It depends on the viewer (as to what the meaning of the work is). ’Yung sarili nilang memory puwede nilang ipatong doon sa nakikita nila."
Maria Cristina Valdezco creates awe-inspiring soft sculptures using rags, fabric trimmings (or retaso) and, these days, cotton yarn.
Jevijoe Vitug simply refuses to be pigeonholed as an artist. "The more you destroy, the more you create new art," is how Vitug describes his artistic philosophy.
He examines the art-making practice itself, approaching it as an investigative artist. In creating his "Modernize, Terrorize" series, Vitug got paintings from Mabini, asked a few of his friends to destroy them (by hammering or blowing them up, by spraying paint on them), and putting the whole thing on video. "In a film, you have pre-production, production, and post-production. You have a director, a writer, a cameraman and actors working on it." So, Vitug approached his new series the way media operates. His question is, "Does an artist have to work on all the aspects of an artwork in order to call himself the creator?"
Anading. Bitancor. Ching. Cobangbang. Coquilla. Cordero. Garcellano. Jarque. Oliveria. Pastrana. Sison-Ching. Valdezco. Vitug. Never mind the bollocks about Philippine contemporary art being in a state-of-putrefaction, here are the new radicals.