Boys over flowers

Things can get a little cheeky when you invite a rowdy bunch of Brit-Pinoy actors to Manila’s biggest art gallery.

The truth is that I didn’t expect to fall in love with Juan Direction. You have to understand: I’m a huge fan of One Direction, and what I initially understood as a local version of my five favorite British boys almost felt like a personal insult, a slap on my proverbial face. Like, what’s up, Philippines? Why you gotta ruin everything I love?

But like any good journalist, I was determined to find out what the dealio is with these guys. I thought I could also figure out why our country continues to churn out local versions of cultural imports. Often badly, at that. (I’m looking at you, Gossip Girl/Lipgloss.)

A quick online search told me the following: three of the members are from England, one is from Ireland, and the other is Canadian. They were neither a boy band nor any sort of musical outfit. In fact, apart from the occasional goofing off, they neither sang nor danced. They got to know one another while modeling professionally and became good friends; some even roomed with one another. They became known for their documentary-like YouTube show (that eventually turned into a TV5 reality series) where they’d go around the country talking to every Juan in their tearfully cute English accents and going on varied little adventures.

This was where Juan Direction began, really: just a bunch of good-lookin’ dudes climbing mountains and eating weird food. They were funny and surprisingly relatable, quick to adapt to the strange environments they were often put in. Later on, Cavite-born, Yorkshire transplant Brian Wilson admits that they never intended to be called Juan Direction, but he was partly to blame for it. “We were coming up with names for the group, and we all couldn’t agree on a name,” he shared. “We set it aside for next time and I said, ‘Well, at least we’re not gonna call ourselves Juan Direction or something!’ … The network guys ended up liking it.”

Even before knowing that, I could feel my defenses falling, brick by brick. They seemed like a bunch of cool guys to hang out with, and I couldn’t exactly blame them if they couldn’t hold a candle to my homeboys Harry, Louis, Zayn, Liam, and Niall, right? So I did just that — I invited them to a social experiment that would test their assimilation skills: an art gallery.

I asked their handler if they would like to hang out with me for a few hours at Silverlens Gallery where the Santos family, a renowned brood of visual artists, are displaying their collective work for the public. Soler, Mona, Luis, Carina, and Isabel are the progeny of Malang Santos, one of the country’s foremost cartoonist, illustrators, and fine arts painters. Painters Soler and Mona co-founded West Gallery in Quezon City, known for featuring the best of modern Philippine art. Their children Luis and Carina are accomplished artists in their own right, utilizing oil and mixed media in their creations; Isabel, the youngest, is only beginning to flex her artistic skills but is proving to have the talent that runs in her family.

I knew then that we were going be in good company. Our middleman said that the boys would be more than game to do it, but warned that they weren’t the types to frequent art galleries. Oh, and did I mind that they would be a “handful”? I scoffed. Handful, I could deal with. Handful to me was trying to wrangle a 3.0 in Filipino 12, where I struggled to define a panaguri. Five boys? Piece of cake.

They didn’t make it easy for me, though. My dates were an hour late, and I had so much free time that I had already circled the whole gallery on my own—twice. Normally, I would be pissed off, but all that went away when they breezed in through the tall glass doors with apologies and kisses at the ready. I wasn’t prepared to be assaulted with such sweetness, and coupled with the accents that could melt butter — or should I say buttuh — I knew I was a goner.

On their own, perhaps while walking in a mall or grabbing a sandwich, each member individually looked plain. I mean, good looking but plain, like the kind of biracial hotties you catch yourself drooling over while lining up at Starbucks. Together though, they were tall and imposing. Even in plain clothes there was a hum of energy about them as they walked around the gallery; they couldn’t stay still and be quiet.

Daniel Marsh, he of the deadly cheekbones and a roguish Irish accent, immediately asserted himself as the group’s de facto leader. Always eager to please the nice journalist lady, ready to cross his arms in front of a piece of art pensively and share his opinion. In their new sitcom One of the Boys, Daniel plays the lead role opposite Eula Caballero. He gives off that leading man vibe, even off-cam. In line with my One Direction trope, he would be Harry Styles: a showman with a charm that could kill if you weren’t careful.

I had to laugh when he commented on the huge piece by Soler that greeted you at the entrance. “Look at those dots in the background,” he said, pointing at the constellation of paint dots and lines that spanned “Stratus,” 48- x 72-inch oil painting. “They look like traffic! And that big line could be EDSA, don’t you think?”

I’m not quite sure if Soler and his patrons would offer up the same assessment, but I laughed as his friends agreed. They didn’t pore over the pieces for longer than a few seconds until they moved on to the next. Daniel was still eager to share his thoughts on the mixed media series by eldest child Luis, but Essex transplant Henry Edwards, who incidentally plays Daniel’s rival on the show, beat him to it. “It’s like a broken TV!” he declared. He made a move to pretend that he was banging it as though to get a better signal, but when warned not to touch the art, he walked away with his Monster Diamond headphones around his neck, cheeky grin and all.

They weren’t the least bit uncomfortable to tell me that they don’t have any particular taste for “high brow” art. “I’ve been to galleries for school trips back home, maybe,” Brian offered, “but I don’t really draw or anything.” Compared to his friends, he’s a little more soft-spoken and gentle, a Zayn Malik if you will. I often found him lagging behind everyone else while they gabbed about the art, speaking to me only when he really felt like doing so.

Brian pointed out that the more artistic member of the group is actually Charlie Sutcliffe, whose smattering of tattoos peeked out of his black vest. Charlie brushed off the compliment, but boasted that graffiti artist Banksy actually hails from his hometown, Bristol. We parried back in forth over the topic for a bit, then he was distracted by the comic book-inspired art by Isabel, and I finally got to talk to Michael McDonnell.

I found Michael quite interesting in his own way, because unlike his friends who oohed and aahed appropriately over each painting, he had a pretty solid opinion on the art: he didn’t like it. “I don’t like how art sort of divides people into liking it or not,” he declared, his dark features set on a series of playing card collages. Only a few moments ago, I saw Brian and Daniel marveling at its handiwork. I asked Michael if he’d prefer it if everyone just liked the same thing, and he said he did.

“You’re a fascist, man,” one of his friends called out from the other end of the room. Michael just shook his head and laughed. Still, I could already tell he couldn’t be swayed. But when he came across Luis’ hyper-realistic oil paintings of animal skulls, I could tell he was impressed. “This is a painting?” he marveled. “Could I touch it?”

I’m somehow happy to have converted even the Scroogiest of the Juan Directioners, and we ended the tour with Mona Santos’ “Morning Light” series, an oil triptych of a wrinkly comforter. Personally, it was one of my favorites in the exhibit, but it didn’t appeal to their more masculine senses. “I mean, it’s nice and everything,” Charlie told me, “but it’s a duvet. I’m not gonna pay all that money to stare at a painting of a duvet when I could just buy one.”

I told him that loads of people probably would, but he simply shook his head and said, “Nope, not me.”

Given their lack of interest in traditional art, I was surprised to hear them ask if we really had seen all of the gallery. When I said we had, Daniel piped in, “I think we should go to a bigger gallery next time.”

I didn’t dare admit that I thought so too. Juan Direction, who only too happily admitted that they knew nothing about art, taught me so much about appreciating how beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Why was I so surprised? They were the enemy, the fakes, the copycats, after all. But they were so refreshingly sincere and honest that I had to ask myself, was I being the phony?

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Catch Juan Direction from Monday to Friday, 7:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. on TV5.

Special thanks to Silverlens Gallery