Visions of light

Creating outstanding work, coupled with the need to share one’s unique vision of reality – indeed, ‘to leave a mark’ – was certainly the primary creative motivation for young Filipino artists," summarized Ateneo Art Gallery curator Ramon Lerma.

The young artists he was referring to were those short-listed for the Ateneo Art Awards, an annual event established by the Ateneo Art Gallery, and co-presented by YStyle, Power Plant Mall and Rockwell Land, with the support of Art Petron, to herald young local artists and bring modern and contemporary art into the national consciousness.

Entitled "Cross Encounters", the awards exhibition features works by many of today’s accomplished young artists. From Isa Lorenzo’s haunting black and white photograph, labeled "Cocoon", featuring lit seashells against a still black backdrop (formed as part of an exhibit called "Healing Spaces" as a tribute to cancer survivors) to Mac Valdezco’s figures made of cotton yarn, abstract sculptures that invite audiences to create meanings out of biomorphic figures, each work is a glimpse into the mindset of a whole new group of artists, and part of an attempt to bring local contemporary art to the forefront of the art scene.

Curator Ramon Lerma was impressed by the works on display, stating, "This tendency to make grand statements, voiced in visual, conceptual and, might I add, attitudinal terms – either as academic/classical prodigy or anti-establishment Neo-Dada – is typical of young artists everywhere, who at this stage in their careers are still staking their positions, and defining and developing their art. Some of the discourse may be local, while others are arrived at with an eye towards developments in the international contemporary art scene, yet all of them speak of a certain ambitiousness of vision, which I find very exciting."

The awards were bestowed on three particularly promising artists, based on the deliberations of the jury, composed of luminaries like Dr. Alice Guillermo, art critic and professor emeritus at UP Diliman, Sid Hildawa, artist and visual arts director at the CCP, Cid Reyes, artist and art critic, Fr. Rene Javellana, director of Ateneo’s fine arts program, Ramon Lerma, curator of the Ateneo Art Gallery, Chut Cuerva, architect and STAR columnist, Miguel Rosales, interior designer and arts and design journalist, Dr. Jaime Laya, art collector and former Governor of Central Bank of the Philippines and chairman of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), and Ma. Victoria Herrera, assistant professor at UP Diliman.

The winners were announced at Power Plant Mall, Rockwell, also the venue for the unveiling of the "Cross Encounters" exhibit which features the works of all 12 finalists. Co-presentors Malou Pineda, AVP and GM of Power Plant Mall (representing Rockwell Land president Nestor Padilla), JP Masakayan, VP for Retail of Rockwell Land, Celine Lopez, editor and creative director of YStyle, and the awards jurors lauded the artists and their works.

Among the 12 finalists were this year’s Ateneo Art Awards winners: Annie Cabigting, Eric Zamuco and Ronald Ventura.

Fine arts grad Annie Cabigting submitted an installation entitled "100 pcs.", a deconstruction piece dedicated to conceptual artist Roberto Chabet who, in ’77, was photographed tearing up a book, namely Contemporary Philippine Art by Manuel Duldulao, and throwing it into a trash can inside the Small Gallery of the CCP. Cabigting’s work consists of three photo-replications of the scene in oil, as well as a book displayed inside a glass case.

Fellow winner Eric Zamuco created a piece made out of copper wire and plexiglass, entitled "Red". Zamuco, who won a CCP 13 Artists Award in 2003 and a residency grant in Vermont in 2002, plays with the idea of traditional graphic media, "investigating the visual, tactile and tensile possibilities of a range of detritus hardware and filaments," according to Lerma. "Strategically lit to cast playful shadows on any blank wall, the overall effect appears like wayang versions of National Artist Arturo Luz’s ‘Carnival Forms’ series, colliding with Nena Saguil’s oscillating crepuscular mindscapes."

Ateneo Art Awardee Ronald Ventura was also chosen by The Cross Art Project, a leading alternative project space in Sydney, Australia, to receive the Ateneo Art Gallery Sydney Studio Residency Grant, which will provide him with round-trip airfare, a modest allowance, accommodation at an elegant studio apartment in the city’s prestigious Potts Point district for three weeks, as well as an invitation to exhibit his winning artworks at the same space. Ateneo de Manila University president Rev. Beinvenido F. Nebres and the Australian Ambassador to the Philippines Tony Hely announced the prize.

Ventura, not new to the awards scene, having been honored with a nomination last year for his "Dead End Images" exhibition, awed the audience with his large-scale, pencil drawing entitled "Human Study". The pamphlet summarizes this award-winning piece: "It is a fantastical depiction of humanity, and a supreme manifestation of the artist’s virtuosity as a classical draftsman. Drawing his subjects from life, the artist appears as a naked man without arms hovering at the top of the picture, while his brother is depicted riding a grotesquerie of conjoined horses with mechanical limbs. A third man is shown trapped inside a plastic bag, and a woman with a barcode covering her face floats inches above a table, illustrating the human as debased, scrutinized material."

Lerma adds, "In a really good drawing, it is obvious that the artist does not follow a formula, but invents an ever-varying repertoire of graphic signs. Every great draftsman can be recognized by his handwriting, by the degree of flow and rhythm, of sharpness and crispness he imparts to his line. If he can impress his own personal style of drawing on every subject, he has forced the world around him to see his own vision."

Ventura’s work not only epitomizes what the Ateneo Art Awards hopes to gain after exhibiting the works of talented bright young things but also proves that the local art scene is gearing up for some serious work by ambitious artists, making Manila, once again, open to progressive, dynamic, contemporary art.