Rosscapili: From traditional to digital and back

MANILA, Philippines - These days when art as we know it is caught between the tenets of tradition and the convenience of innovation, there has never been a more challenging time to establish, all the more maintain, a unique image. With almost 40 years in the art world, of varying movements, expressions, and media that span from decade to decade, Ross Capili (a.k.a. Rosscapili) is no stranger to this situation. Such that his 40th exhibit titled “Crossroad,” which captures his artistic memoir through the lens of his camera and a limited-edition tome, brings him in a creative intersection where the past and the future gloriously collide.

Fresh from his routine afternoon siesta the moment he opened his gallery-cum-commercial graphic design studio, One Workshop, for this exclusive peek to his exhibition work, Rosscapili may seem to share the ancient habits of the master artists that have come before him, but he’s in no way old-fashioned. As the ‘80s bore witness to his figurative work, the ‘90s produced his highly-prized abstractions, and the ’00s digital age gave way to his multi-media work, little did everyone know that the 54-year-old Rosscapili could trace his roots from the rawest form of visual art.

“This time, what I’ll be showing in this exhibition is purely photography. This is the first time I will be presenting my images on film and digital that are solidly taken by my camera,” confesses Rosscapili. Those who may be more accustomed to his expressionist, multi-hued brushstrokes caught on canvas may just as well find the same vivid vigor in his pictorial prints.  

The result is a collection of 23 photographs printed in archival cotton blocks that display the artist’s rich and textured history — from travelogues, to family snapshots, poignant portraits, to emotional vignettes — taken from the time since Rosscapili traded his Rotary Club of Manila art competition prize money back in 1974 for a trusty P700 Pentax camera.

“I remember our tuition back then was P80 a year, so you could just imagine how I treasured that camera. I used it for 25 years,” Rosscapili recalls with an air no short of nostalgia. And that is really what his exhibit is about: a longing which recollects a simpler, more basic time when he was a secondary student at the Philippine College of Arts and Trades, his gritty Tondo roots, his colorful memories of street-side billboard painters and jeepney artists and their rippling effects on the artist that he has evolved into.

Of course, this plight isn’t one without an accomplice, so Rosscapili’s “Crossroad” is twin-billed with an artist he shared most of his training years with, fellow photo auteur Luis Martin-Harder.

“There is a story behind ‘Crossroads,’” shares Rosscapili, pointing to a sepia-toned class picture in the foreword of the exhibit’s limited-edition coffee table book. “This was back in 1973, me and Luis Martin-Harder were classmates for four years. This book is not only about our works but also what we have to say, our experiences, our thoughts,” he adds. The result is an astonishing collaboration where Rosscapili’s expressive, introspective images match the vibrant and infectious snapshots of Martin-Harder — an equal tug-of-war of emotion, theme and context found in the pages of only 100 signed and certified Crossroads books.  

The limited-edition portfolio and exhibition not only celebrates, in stark contrast, the unlikely artistic relationship of Rosscapili and Martin-Harder, but also the dying art of traditional photography at the age where the DSLR reigns supreme.

“Now, you see your work instantly and if you don’t like it, you just press delete. There is no sense of excitement anymore, the surprise and discipline within that becomes the soul of every image you capture,” rant Rosscapili of the medium whose evolution he partly dreaded, ultimately matched, and perhaps even outwitted. Rosscapili uses digital now, but he takes it a notch higher by fusing his abstract style of painting with his own brand of high-def photography.

“I realized that I could do well by mixing both,” he says, referring to compositions that gained the nods of both international and local audiences. But none of these at the ‘Crossroads’; only pure, passion-filled photography that leapt from the past to embrace the call of the times.

Rosscapili’s initial foray into art tome publishing also ushers in a new development for today’s brewing creative scene. “In the future, I plan to gather works of mid-career artists, up and coming or the unrepresented, those whose names haven’t been established yet and publish them in a book to give them recognition. I think that my background sets me up for this bigger task,” reveals Rosscapili of his planned method of distinguishing new masters and masterpieces that is nothing fresh in the art scene, true, but is distinctly amiss amid the current art boom.

He also co-founded the Facebook page ArtPhilippines, which gathers over 3,000 Filipino artists here and around the world, perhaps in what could be Rosscapili’s own twist on the words “digital art.”

“My advice for the young artists is to be themselves, bring out what is in you. Don’t be bothered by what you see on the Internet or elsewhere, they’re all just distractions. Don’t be swayed by the trends. You feel, you look for it, what we call identity,” shares Capili.

For someone who has gone from traditional to digital, and back, it seems, Rosscapili is not running out of inspiration and now that he is at the crossroads of both, one may just wonder where he goes next.

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Rosscapili and Luis Marin-Harder’s exhibit and book launch will be held on Nov. 26, 6 p.m., at the OneWorkshop Gallery, Suite 324 LRI Design Plaza, Nicanor Garcia St., Makati City.