Sym introduces a new dimension of art

MANILA, Philippines - It was in 1987 when the lauded historian Ambeth Ocampo wrote about an artist who signed his canvases with his initials “Sym”, short for Soforino Y. Mendoza. Ambeth talks about the artist warmly, recounting his slow rise to fame, of the time when a “paintbrush cost him one week’s salary in Cebu,” to the time he realized he had made it, because “his work is now being forged left and right.”

A native of Carcar Cebu, Sym was the co-founder of the Dimasalang Art Group in Manila in 1968 –– a small ramshackle studio in Sampaloc street where he and a group of other impressionist-inspired artists would meet to create their representational art. He was masterfully skilled in capturing light, he did so elegantly with the stroke of his brush, and became a prominent figure for his art –– of being able to recreate a landscape, the skyline, or street scenes in Manila, continuing the legacy of the realist Filipino painters before him: Amorsolo, Hidalgo and Juan Luna.

Today, at 79 years old and having lived much of his later life with his family in Canada, Sym is still capturing magical moments, but now with an eye of a modern abstract artist, creating works that showcase his sheer dynamism. In fact in 2004, he was awarded the Transforming Art Award by the Canadian government for his modern work. While his “neo-cubist” style deviates from his classical background, his upcoming show entitled New Dimension remains striking, and is a breakaway that allows us to believe that Sym, like a true artist, is forever evolving.

Sym’s pieces are complex, different from the works of the great cubists like Picasso. His aesthetic works with hard-edged geometric elements, playing with push and pull, but adding depth to his works, and always presenting a subject. He is indeed introducing to us a new dimension, as he goes beyond the frontier of a flat surface, but never dips completely into the world of realism. With his upcoming show, it is a peak into Sym’s journey as an artist, the decades of his experience with the paintbrush. Visually it is energetic, a metamorphic shift that invites us into this familiar but contemporary dimension.

Today, Sym shifts between living in Canada and life here in the Philippines. He is still regarded as one of the Philippines’ greatest art mentors. His latest body of work takes us into the mind of an artist in the context of the modern times, but still with the wisdom of a craftsman who has mastered his art historically. 

New Dimension will be on exhibit from Oct. 8 to 20, at the Crucible Gallery in SM Megamall. Opening reception will be on Oct. 8, Tuesday, at 6 p.m.