FEB RUAR Y 1 4 - 1 6 , 2020
A LT P H I L I P PINES 2020, SMX C ONVENTION C ENT ER , SM AUR A PR EM IE RE, TAGUIG CITY
MATERIALS
OF
THE
ARTIST
NICE BUENAVENTURA Tony Godfrey: Nice, do you start with materials? Nice Buenaventura: No. I start with a tension. That is what I try and resolve through a process I’m comfortable with, like making. In some ways my practice is really just an offloading of personal and social tensions, but incidentally productive. Godfrey: You make it sound psychological. Buenaventura: It feels that way. Godfrey: Can you give me an example? Buenaventura: My last show at Artinformal was a response to Walter Benjamin and his attack on mechanical reproduction. I was unsettled by the idea that a celebrated Marxist could be against something that aided in the democratisation of information, entertainment, art. The
works I had in that show featured motifs that appear accidental but they took ages. One nine-bytwelve-inch work took me a week. And yes, in the case of drawings, the paper is more important than the pencil. I have to have paper with a deep enough tooth to catch the tones. Godfrey: Do you make prints? Buenaventura: Yes, but by drawing them. If I did it by etching, I would have to vary them all, make each a little different. I like the minor differences in all machine-made things. I like blips, errors and mis-registrations. My dilemma now--or should I say tension--is whether to continue resisting technology or to integrate it into my methods. I’m working on a new media installation for a class, an acrylic box with a plant and some sensors and motors inside. The idea is to present nature and technology not as divergent but as parallel systems.
It’s something that excites me but you have to realise, my interest in technology lies in that I can subvert it. Godfrey: And how does the material affect what they eventually mean? Buenaventura: I like to think that the materials I end up using are products of improvisation, a theme that runs parallel to the problems I set out to define through art-making. To my mind the more important thing that separates man from machine is not the quality of their output but of their manner. When confronted with difficulty, a machine just stops working. We, on the other hand, improvise. I was never formally trained as an artist, not even now as I’m taking an MSc I Media and Arts Technology, and so the charcoal I suspend in oil or the eraser shields I craft out of paper are things I just make up as I go along.
ALVIN ZAFRA Tony Godfrey: What is different about your new work? Alvin Zafra: It is made with white stone on sandpaper, but then I put smoked glass over it. I wanted to emulate what things look like when I don’t have my glasses on. The image is from a photo I took in a flea market – the parts of a sewing machine. Godfrey: Is that image important to you? Zafra: The inspiration for it came from my mum. She used to teach home economics. Sadly, soon after I made this new work, she had a stroke and her eyes became blurred. Godfrey: Can I ask what your most recent show at Artinformal was about? How how were they made?
Zafra: The images were of public sculptures here in Manila. They are not powerful, but small, battered, rundown, often not very good. As usual, sand paper is my support. The material I chose to draw on the sandpaper was white stones. It seemed appropriate because it felt urban, the same colour as concrete and the city. What else have I used to rub against or draw on the sandpaper? A skull (twice), bullets, fingernails. I plan to use precious materials like gold, silver or jade. Both for the colour and the value or symbolism. Way back in 2000 I rubbed with gold but once rubbed on it looked grey. Godfrey: What problems does your chosen support cause? Zafra: It is difficult to mount on wood. It is very difficult in the Philippines to find large sheets of fine sandpaper which is what I
use. I don’t add varnish but I have been experimenting with other ways to ensure the material sticks. I injure myself often, especially when smudging areas by rubbing. My fingers get worn down, the skin gets thin. But there is no alternative: I can’t work with gloves on. It is a very physical process. I have found ways to avoid allergic reactions to the sandpaper. Sometimes I wear a mask which is awkward if you wear glasses like me! I have now made 65 photo-realist works on sandpaper. I am faster than I was but it is still a very slow process: something like the triptych I showed at the recent Art Informal show can take three months to complete. Godfrey: Do you sometimes wish you had never discovered sandpaper? And how did you discover it?
teacher, Sir Chabet told me I needed to find something original. My first sandpaper work was made from a statue of the Virgin Mary. I saw it stood on a piece of sandpaper so I literally put the two things together. It was a eureka moment for me. The next thing I made was a realist drawing of a finger bone using a finger bone. Both those early works are lost, though I made another version of the Mary statue later on. Godfrey: How do you construct these realist works? Zafra: I simplify things. I omit lines from landscapes. I am more faithful to what I feel then to what I see. The images or subjects should speak to me.
Zafra: No. It’s my thing now. My
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R AENA AB ELLA
Stephanie Frondoso: Please describe your medium. Raena Abella: I specialize in ambrotypes—a positive photograph on glass that uses the collodion wet plate process. In this process, the photographic material is coated with chemicals, exposed and developed within a span of seven minutes, necessitating the use of a portable darkroom in the field. Each photo is unique and cannot be duplicated. Ambrotypes were first used in the 1850s. Frondoso: Why did you choose to specialize in ambrotypes? Abella: After working for five years inside my own darkroom, I wanted to try something new by
shooting outside the darkroom. Traveling with a portable darkroom turned out to be liberating and extremely challenging. It is a temperamental process; the outcome always uncertain, affected by factors such as the heat of that day. It is one of the most difficult types of photography. I believe that art must come with a mastery of the craft. Once you commit to a medium, you must do your best with that medium. This is even more important when showing ambrotypes in the Philippines because the audience deserves to see the best example of a process that is often not available here. Although it is difficult, I consider it fun. It involves a mix of luck, alchemy, and magic.
Frondoso: Please share with us some details on your process. Abella: I like to drive alone to my shoot locations. I enjoy the solitude because I am able to think without distractions. Sometimes I select locations that I have passed by many times before and have always wanted to shoot. Since I only have a seven-minute window for the process, preparation is crucial. And even with an enormous amount of preparation, I still have many rejected plates. I instinctively know when, despite the markings and imperfections, or because of them, I have been able to create a good, interesting picture.
TOSHA ALB OR Tony Godfrey: What materials do you use?
Godfrey: Are you fussy about choosing paper?
Tosha Albor: Dry and wet – charcoal, and graphite, but also a lot of ink and watercolour. This is what the environment that I am in allows me – I paint in my front room. And that becomes part of the process. When I had a dedicated studio, I experimented a lot more with spray paint and enamels. As for supports, now I use a lot more paper since I live in London and have to send work to the Philippines and elsewhere by post. But I like that challenge. It pushes me out of my comfort zones. If you don’t have limitations you wouldn’t really push yourself.
Albor: Quite. I have learnt the hard way. Nothing less than 300 gsm. And with a rough surface. I begin with wet – water is a surface I use. I create a wash of water on the paper and let the ink or watercolour flow. Recently I was working on a canvas on the rooftop and it rained but I carried on in the rain.
varnish these works if collectors ask, otherwise I am happy for it to keep changing. Recently I have been working with Michael Munoz on San Sebastien cathedral which was made from prefabricated steel. They have been scraping off rust – four hundred year old rust. I have been given a box of it to make new work.
all silhouettes. Very flat.
Godfrey: Do you miss painting?
Godfrey: Are these the toys you had as a child?
Godfrey: Was it a success? Albor: It made a good background for what I will do next with the canvas. Generally, I let the sediments build up and then I start excavating – especially
when I am working on canvas. I scrub them: I love the look of semi-washed off paint. Often I use a dry medium, normally graphite to scrub things off. What have I buried? What can I discover? I once titled a show “Dig” meaning dig as in archaeological dig. Godfrey: When do you work? Albor: It is difficult to be a fulltime artist in a rich country like the UK. I make art before I go to work. I work in digital design for Cancer Research – it’s an interesting work and a good cause. What do I do there? For example, there was a fund-raising app. They wanted
J UAN ALCAZAREN Tony Godfrey: Do you begin with materials?
though my wife say I make a joke out of everything.
Juan Alcazaren: Sometimes yes, or sometimes with an idea, a word I heard or something I read. I make objects but they tend to look conceptual perhaps because I incorporate text. Why? To seem profound? I think everything is mock profundity. I don’t know if I am capable of making anything truly profound. The only profundity comes from God. Yes, I go to church every week – it is an aspect of my work, though I don’t think I could make things for a church. Perhaps, I am Dadaistic at heart, like the Fluxus guys.
Godfrey: How did the piece installed on the stairs of Ateneo begin?
Godfrey: There is a strong element of play in your work. Alcazaren: Wholly. But my personality is melancholic, or phlegmatic. I don’t think I am cynical,
Alcazaren: With the stairs. That dictated what we could. Originally, I meant to embed words made from children’s wooden ABC blocks, but the engineers couldn’t work it out. Therefore, I used words cut in metal: I like the clattering sound that work makes when you go up the stairs. I had those metal words fabricated – because it was a commission it was one of the few occasions when I could afford to do that. I like steel, it co-operates – you can hammer it into shape, it doesn’t fight back. If you make a mistake you can shape it into something else. Because my work place is on the roof of our townhouse it gets rusty. Sometimes I put it out specifically to rust. I
Alcazaren: I stopped painting in 2003 or 2004. I used to paint on the ground floor but my wife and I had children so had to move upwards. But I am going back to it. My brother and I have rented a space nearby. What shall I paint? I have a catalogue of all the objects I have made, all their shapes. It looks as if they should be in translated into something flat. There is a painting waiting to be done there. I am also working on a stop-go animation which is
Godfrey: How do you work normally? Alcazaren: I dig up the boxes on the shelves of my work space and look for things that connect one with another or that generate ideas. I have, for example, many boxes of old toys.
Alcazaren: Some are my old toy cars, plus all the toys no longer needed by my seven siblings. I have seventeen nieces and nephews who contribute too. As with Boltanski they have to be used toys. A lot of my work is about the history of objects. I also get a lot of old kitchen stuff from my siblings. In Finale I made a work of old plastic chopping boards, with lights set behind to expose all
the cuts and scuffs – the history objects accrue. Sometimes however I buy flat-pack stuff from hardware stores. Godfrey: Do you like hardware stores? Alcazaren: `Yes! To me they are like candy stores!
to enhance it so people could to upload and share photos. What I did was mainly user research. Do people in the community want that and which community? Godfrey: How does this digital work feed into your art work? Albor: When software developers make a work, it is an iterative process – lots of play and prototyping. Making art is like that for me now. I don’t know what it will look like at the end. I iterate and the work pivots and flows. It is bad form to assume that you know the solution to a problem in advance and that is my mantra for my painting.
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JAN BALQUI N Stephanie Frondoso: What materials do you work with? Jan Balquin: I use resin, plaster, cement, grout, eggshell dust, silicone, printed images for collages, and different kinds of paints.
acteristics. When I was still at art school, our teachers would insist that we highlight the material for what it is: that wood must look like wood. Now that I am a practicing artist, I like to do the opposite of that: make wood look soft or make resin appear like jello.
Frondoso: What do you make with these materials and why?
Frondoso: Please give more specific examples of these material experiments.
Balquin: I like to make objects that disguise the material’s char-
Balquin: I cast eggshell dust so that it would look like bone. I used
cement reinforced with fiber to make it look like a tree branch. I made silicone look like charcoal, but gummy to the touch like a tire. I used plaster to form shapes resembling stones. I mixed oils with latex paint and partially peeled the paintings off their surface as if they are about to fall off, with the intention of creating paintings that behave like sculptures. As experiments, many of these works produce surprises. I like to try combining unlikely
materials, for example plaster with resin, even if I am unsure of the outcome, not knowing if these materials will bind or stick together.
Stephanie Frondoso: What is your favorite material?
Then I discovered that my father is really good at using transfers so he helped me further refine my process. In 2011, I began using transfers in just a small part of my paintings. But during a portfolio review at Silverlens, they suggested that I use transfers for the entire painting. In 2012 I had my first show with transfers on the whole surface.
Frondoso: Might you continue in this direction? Balquin: Yes because these types of experiments are endless and mastering them is an ongoing goal.
Z E A N CABAN GIS Zean Cabangis: Acrylic paints and I get along. I like to be able to cover up mistakes immediately and easily move on if there is something I want to change about a painting. Acrylic has the characteristic that allows me to do that. Frondoso: You also use transfers with your paintings. When did this begin and how? Cabangis: During my first year at university, I was studying under Liv Vinluan. She taught our class how to use transfers and then left us alone to experiment. I started making little projects using transfers, like personalizing pin badges of Metallica or Incubus.
C OSTANT IN O Z ICA REL L I Tony Godfrey: Cos, what materials do you use? Costantino Zicarelli: The studio Nice and I use is so small. We don’t have much storage space. So, I find my materials at home: older sculptures that didn’t work. I try to make something new out of them. It’s like a repair job. I always have a plan B. If I can’t sell something, what else can I make out of it. Another time I had some nice wood – what could I do with it? My works are also now inspired by domestic things. My show in Vargas was about the experience of caring for our
family house: I took elements from it to the gallery and covered them synthetic dust. I used to paint but I wasn’t getting anywhere with it. The paintings were photo based and there wasn’t much going on. So, I stepped back and started all over again with pencil. Drawing gave me a stepping stone to my identity. I was never so confident when I was painting. What I draw with matters a lot: recently I found a 12B pencil but I haven’t used it yet. I am a bit scared of it.
Zicarelli: It’s really important. The thicker it is the better it is for me. Thin paper warps in the humidity of the Philippines. Actually, drawing is more stressful than painting because the paper is so dominating – you can’t cover it up with paint as you can canvas. Black gesso is a great material for the Philippines – even acrylic can get mouldy. And organic materials ou have to accept will change. When I use resin I try and mix with it powdered charcoal so it has a more organic approach.
Godfrey: How important is the paper?
C HAR LES BUENCO NSEJ O
Spectra (detail), 26.5 x 40 in / 67.3 x 101.6 cm, lambda metallic print, edition of 3, 2012
Frondoso: What do you like about using transfers? Cabangis: My works are made of five layers. Transfers are transparent so you can see the layers underneath. I like how transfers can show a combination of play and serious work.
Frondoso: What are these layers made of? Cabangis: I combine images— photographs, magazine cutouts, printed collages of photographs. I have even used finished works as part of collages for my next works. When I find a magazine image that I really like, I duplicate it so that I can use the image again in other works. Frondoso: What other surfaces do you use aside from canvas? Cabangis I also apply transfers to wood, stone and cement. I took photographs of a demolished house and transferred the images onto wood. I then sawed the wood and reconstructed the pieces using glue and acrylics.
There are plenty of stones from construction sites around UP. I use them to make maquettes. Stones are like small landscapes. With them I can make little cities. I recently started taking photographs of potholes on the road (“lubak”). Potholes are a big concern for me because I’ve been a cyclist for 8 years and ride my bike almost everyday. It’s frustrating that many potholes haven’t been repaired for years, even if they so easy to repair. I will be making new work applying these images of potholes onto cement surfaces.
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J C JAC IN TO Stephanie Frondoso: You have been exhibiting pieces of your own homemade artificially petrified wood together with your paintings. Why? JC Jacinto: I am fascinated with petrified wood found in nature. I discovered some while walking by a river. All the wood fibers were already gone because of the constant water pressure. They were beautiful, like gemstones with an inner glow. It takes millions of years for wood to naturally petrify, so I started researching on how I could speed up the petrification process. The pieces of wood on exhibit are results of my ongoing experiments. Frondoso: How do these objects relate to the paintings? Jacinto: The paintings are like a
time lapse condensed into a single frame of the mineralization that occurs during petrification. They are representations of what occurs with pressure and heat. I am contemplating man’s interruption with the evolution of nature, how to fast forward petrification to fit into man’s limited time on earth. My inquiry into the processes in nature led me to an inquiry of self: why am I doing this and how does it represent me as an artist and humans in general? The paintings and the petrified pieces balance each other. I started making these experiments about five years ago as a break between paintings, but now it is the other way around. Painting became the break between experiments as a way to loosen up because the experiments require following very specific rules.
Frondoso: Can you share with us some of the methods you have used and what you have observed from the results? Jacinto: For some of the pieces I use chemicals such as borax. For others I use bacteria harvested from soybeans. Most of these experiments are trial and error, but I also put in a lot of research. The pieces of wood that I find around my farm or around my neighborhood are usually very fragile because they are riddled with termite tunnels. I impregnate these pores and tunnels with chemicals or through a microbially induced process. The resulting pieces become harder than the original wood but also lose their flexibility and become more brittle and breakable. Alloys are what give them color—blue tones are formed by copper, purple is from
chromium, red is from lead and green is from nickel. Frondoso: What can we expect from your material experimentation in the future? Jacinto: I would like to collaborate with chemists and scientists, but for the purpose of making art. My intention is to show and contemplate on the act of breaking natural rhythms so that we can make tangible forms of these ideas with objects that are safe to keep and store. I hope to be able to eventually use the wood fibers as the armature with the rest of the body predominantly made of metal. I want to go deeper in examining these complex networks that occur even if we don’t see them.
L UI M ED INA Tony Godfrey: Lui, materials, I assume, have always been where you begin. Lui Medina: OK, well even with painting I have approached it through materials, less so through an image. Godfrey: Did you begin as a figure painter? Medina: Yes. But when I got to my MA in the Slade, London I did a U-turn. I decided to leave painting for a while for video, performance, new media. Bruce Mclean, Estelle Thompson and all the other tutors always encouraged us to experiment. It re-informed how I approached painting. Once you leave the white painting square how can you approach painting? You asked whether I call myself an “artist” or a “painter”. I call myself an artist, but I respect painting as a discipline. Godfrey: Currently you are working on paper with graphite. Is this painting to you?
E LLA MENDOZA Stephanie Frondoso: How did you begin working with ceramics? Ella Mendoza: I enrolled at Rita Gudiño’s class for one semester and became intrigued. I stopped drawing and painting for three years and focused on making functional ceramic objects during that time. I was hooked on the wheel but eventually also wanted to make more sculptural work on the wheel That is when I came up with the idea of forming ceramic versions of the tin can, conveying that tin cans are the artefacts of our time. Frondoso: Why did you decide to specialize in ceramics?
Mendoza: The material is very addicting to work with and has unexpected outcomes. I also like our local ceramic community. My fellow ceramic artists, especially the elders, generously share their knowledge about clay, making the process an endless pit of learning. I am most interested in the material’s history and how it was originally used to make vessels for food and drink. I always contemplate on the history of clay when considering concepts for my work. Frondoso: Please describe some of these concepts. Mendoza: We have replaced the use of ceramic vessels for food
with disposable packaging. So I wanted to play with the irony of shaping clay into the forms of disposable packaging. I like how the material contrasts with these forms; that viewers would not expect these objects to be ceramic until they touch them. Frondoso: Do you have a preferred type of clay? Mendoza: I like using stoneware, a high firing type of clay, because I can play more with the colors and finish in realizing my ideas.
Medina: Once again, I made a conscious intention to stop making painting and see where other media took me. But I always saw my paintings as like sculpture, lumpy, about materials. I certainly approach these drawings like painting. That’s the nice thing about drawing. It is so malleable: it gives you so much space to move. The way I deal with images is as in painting: I approach that via video or photography. My subject is landscape and I started that interest because of the landscape painting tradition. Godfrey: I am sitting in your studio and I can see behind your head a big drawing of sky and mountains and lots of photos of landscape, especially of mountains, stone buildings and sky. Earth and sky or sometimes earth and cloud. Medina: Actually, it is a photograph, not a drawing. I have exhibited photographs already once and will exhibit four more in March at AI. It is a big thing to do, a jump away from a form I
naturally feel comfortable with. They are digital photos with lots of small post-production edits. I am not really interested in photos per se. That is not my discipline. They are painter’s photographs. They are one-offs not editions. Godfrey: Why do you make such large paper works? Medina: It is more to do the orientation of it. I very rarely make vertical works. The horizon is important. I am experimenting with making smaller works but always with the same format. Godfrey: Are you fussy about the paper you use? Medina: I am particular about materials but you can’t be so choosy in Manila. Sometimes I have gotten so frustrated that I have shipped stuff back from London by Parcel-force. But the paper I used to get in the UK is available here now: a strong paper, about 250-300 gram per square metre but not too thick. A soft smooth paper, not grainy –
so I can slide the graphite about easily. Water soluble graphite when wet feels like paint. I started these works specifically with liquid graphite and then used dry graphite as well. Godfrey: Do you make a composition sketch for these large drawings? Medina: No, it is like creating a map. I lay in the main continents and then add islands and shallows between them. Any splashes, I work round them. I am very interested in archipelagan thought – thinking the world as islands not nations. The sea becomes different if you think that way.
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PA BLO CAPATI III Tony Godfrey: Pablo, you are a very committed ceramicist – or should I call you a potter? Is that how you began making – with clay? Pablo Capati III: As for the label ceramicists or potter, I don’t really have any qualms what I’m called or titled. From experience the traditionalists consider themselves “Potters” and the educated intellects will always introduce themselves as “Ceramicist”. I really couldn’t care less. As regards to “making” during my early teens I always had a knack for building/making/ putting together things. I was an
avid RC car enthusiast, assembling 5 different set of cars to be exact. When I got bored with that I got into assembling my own road bike and mountain bike. I guess it was something to do with my hands getting busy and dirty while some science was involved. I always found pleasure in putting things together and making them work/run. The fascination of having materials and tinkering with it and achieving an end goal sometimes succeeding or failing and doing it all over again, continuously tweaking the process/methods. Clay came into my world when I was thirteen years old. When I saw a senior high student effort-
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L EC C R U Z lessly shaping a decent size platter on the wheel, in my thoughts that was what I wanted to do. That visual pleasure – which is still vivid to this day - is how I started with pottery. I wouldn’t say that everything clicked right away. In fact after my first year with clay i gave it up. Stopping for a year during my Sophomore year in HS. On my junior year i gave it another go in which my real connection with clay occurred. I was finally able to control that stubborn mound of clay on the wheel. I finally learnt and felt what being centered meant.
Frondoso: How does this medium affect your process?
I react to them at the moment. Constant thinking and reacting between hands and canvas is an exhausting process rather than a relaxing one. Painting for long periods has manifested in a nerve injury, proof that thoughts extend to the brush and palette with the strokes. Painting is a slow burn; there is no climax compared to my work as a musician where the live performance is the climax. Thoughts of the painting are immersed in my head even long after the physical activity is over.
Cruz: The painting evolves while I am making it. I select colors intuitively, depending on how
Frondoso: I have observed that you have also ventured into other materials and art forms. How is
Stephanie Frondoso: What is your primary material? Lec Cruz: Oil paint is the medium I am most comfortable with. Unlike acrylics whose luster and tactility change drastically upon drying, oil paints retain their rawness even when you leave the painting for a while. I always aim for rawness and truthfulness. The work must have a soul that leaves a lasting impression.
this related to painting with oil? Cruz: I like trying different ways of exploring art. I realized that working on something new makes me miss my original material. This applies to my music making as well. By trying other kinds of music, I eventually miss my favorite genre and go back to it with renewed vigor. Even if the material I am trying is still unfamiliar, my artistic sensibility transfers to it. For example, my attraction to striking colors is reflected in my use of neon lights for sculpture.
W INNIE G O Stephanie Frondoso: How did you start working with clay?
M O NICA DELGADO
Winnie Go: I did not choose the clay; the clay chose me. When in graduate school, I would walk by the pottery class each day and pause to watch students work, always so spellbound and yearning to create my own clay objects. Watching the potter’s wheel move in that circular motion as the potter’s hands dug into that beautiful earth which I wished was mine, thus began my fascination with clay. Frondoso: What do you like most about working with clay and glazes? Go: Clay is a material that is so tactile. The hand building technique makes me feel so close to the earth, as I sculpt it intuitively with no design prepared beforehand, letting ideas shift and flow. I chose raku clay for this body of work (Flower Market) because the sand in it allows me flexibility of form as I work to make something hard look soft, and to have the appearance of movement
within each petal. Underglazes are my favourite medium as I paint each piece uniquely, none like the other. To add contrast, I sometimes tie rope and string—materials that are found in markets. As a trained Italian chef, markets inspire much of my artmaking. Frondoso: Why is your latest series about flowers? Go: This new series of imaginary flowers springs from my love for visiting markets, which I believe is the heart of a country’s culture. Just as the market captures the pulse of the city, these flowers represent the pulse of where every individual comes from. Flowers come from all over the world and are a universal gift— offered to make someone happy, sometimes to ask for forgiveness, and often to comfort the sick or grieving, always connecting us to an emotion. Frondoso: How does this new series relate to your body of work? Go: Intimate and personal experiences have led me to make work that brings joy, centering on
themes of nature’s abundance, growth, reinvention and transformation. Flower Market symbolizes the treasures of the earth: the simplicity of that which brings to us all emotional connections. I approach my material and my subject by taking the route of positivity with the hope that this optimism is conveyed to others. Frondoso: Why did you install the flowers with vintage glass vases? Go: I collected these vintage glass vases through many years of travel. I like how the hardness of glass contributes to the illusion of the softness of flowers, and the interesting contrast between materials. Some of these vases are extremely rare and are no longer being produced. Among the pieces are milk glass, pressed glass, hobnail glass, Depression glass, and combinations of these styles. I want to give them a renewed spirit through art, by bringing together the old and the new to create contemporary 3-dimensional still lifes.
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N E IL PAS ILAN Stephanie Frondoso: What are your materials? Neil Pasilan: I use industrial paints and found objects because they are inexpensive and readily available. When I began working as an artist, I was using terracotta clay because it is abundant in Bacolod, where I am from. I would make craft sculptures to sell at town fiestas. When I moved to Manila, I brought heavy bags of clay with me, not realizing that clay is also available here. Eventually, I taught myself how to paint. Frondoso: How does painting and being a self-taught artist affect your process?
Pasilan: I like painting about life in the province. But when I start a painting, I have no image in mind and work by using my instinct. Art is like magic. I have no plan, and no initial studies or sketches; my feelings pour out onto the canvas faster than any plan, my mind not hindered by sticking to a specific subject. I like using earth colors, or whatever colors are available to me. I do not mix my own color or think of color palettes. I paint quickly and unafraid because I am not copying from anything. The proportions are my own. I have no limits; I believe that perfection and mistakes do not exist in art making. I intuitively decide when a painting is finished.
EL AINE RO B E R TO - N AVA S Frondoso: Do you paint everyday? Pasilan: I make art daily, whether or not I have an upcoming show. I like to enjoy my work and feel good about it. All my paintings are personal; I never consider the commercial aspect of it. I also treat daily painting as a form of regular practice, just as in karate, one needs to practice every single day to become a master. I strive to be better each day. I think that art is related to spiritual practice; I am like a pastor who uses images instead of words because it is a big responsibility to communicate ideas with the public.
Tony Godrey: Elaine, someone once described painting as flat but lumpy. That seems very appropriate for you! Why are your paintings so lumpy and how do you make them so? Would you prefer that I called them sensuous, not lumpy? Elaine Roberto-Navas: I prefer that you’d call my paintings sensually lumpy. They become this way because it’s a byproduct of my attempt to jot down all the information on to the canvas. When you see that some parts of my paintings are thicker than the rest, that means that there was a struggle. I like how Lucian Freud described the struggle, he said something like, the subject you are painting refuses to be painted. And that the canvas is a battleground. If the surface is smoother than the rest it means I got it right in the first attempt. Godfrey: A technical question: what paints do you use? Make, medium, etc. I assume this is important to you.
BR ISA AMIR
Stephanie Frondoso What is your material and how do you use it?
Frondoso: Your recent exhibition at Artinformal shows an expansion to fabric. Please explain why.
Brisa Amir: I often use paper because I am fascinated with the idea that “the paper remembers.” Paper is used a recording device for memories, like when graphite rubbings on paper reveal the form beneath it. I first allow a place to paint on the paper: rainwater, coffee spills, street dust and household materials, and then add my own hand to these markings.
Amir: Both paper and canvas are from trees, so I thought of asking, what if I transfer my philosophy on paper to textile? My work for that show is about the threat of demolition to the homes of informal settlers. While observing their makeshift homes, I realized that the structural covers actually serve as their blankets. I decided to recreate this temporariness by using the large wooden canvas stretcher from the previous show
Roberto-Navas: I use Daler Rowney, Windsor & Newton, Pebeo, and Gamblin. Godfrey: How do you apply it? Roberto-Navas: I apply my paint while it is still wet. This is because I rely on the next layer to blend in with the existing one. For example, if I’m making a forest, I paint a dark green on the surface first. So that when I make a leaf, I load 1-2 other shades of green that will mix in to the base color. That’s why I have to make the paint thick , so that it can blend and maintain its color even if it’s mixed with a pre-existing one . I have to make sure that the load of paint on the brush will be able create the desired color when mixed in , but at the same time be able to maintain its integrity. Then I work on the molding, layering on the highlights and then the shadows. If the highlight , for example titanium white, gets lost when applied to a color, I have to add a thicker dab on top.
Godfrey: You have always painted in a very small room in your Singapore flat. Recently you have acquired a flat in Manila with a much larger room to work in. How has that changed the way you work? Roberto-Navas: Working in a bigger studio makes me feel like there’s too much space! I’d like to think that my strokes are more fluid with the bigger space, but I’m able to do this in a cramped one too. For me, the execution depends on the subject matter, not the space, really. The funny thing with the bigger space is that I find myself planning on making sculptures and drawings too. That really excites me. What I appreciate the most is that I don’t need to take photos of the work in progress to be able to see it from afar. So my camera had become another set of eyes for me, to see the work objectively. The real test afterwards was to look at the reflection of the painting in the mirror when it was all done.
RO D E L TA PAYA
as the base for presenting the works. Sewing the pieces turned out to be a meditative activity that helped me internalize what I always attempt try to express in my work: that place between violence and rest, an inquiry into the definition of home as a place where we seek comfort in the everyday.
Sit A Spell (detail), 7 x 5 ft / 84 x 60 in / 213.63 x 152.4 cm, acrylic on burlap, 2020
AR TINFOR MAL / MATE RIA L S O F THE A RTIST, A LT P H IL IP P IN ES 2 0 2 0
M ARK VALENZUELA Tony Godfrey Mark, is clay enough? You are a ceramicist but you often use other materials, or use clay as a base for drawing or present things as installations. Mark Valenzuela: To answer your question, for me clay is never enough. I approach clay like I do any other material; I always ask myself why am I using this material and how does it relate to or communicate the ideas I’m exploring? It therefore often makes sense to bring in other materials. And of course, clay has its limitations, so there are also practical considerations. But ceramic, like drawing, is always an integral part of my practice. There are so many possibilities with clay, which is why I keep returning to it. There is an element of spontaneity
when working with clay that keeps things interesting, sometimes the material will dictate what it wants and I have to adjust. Ceramics has also enabled me to explore certain themes central to my practice, such as fragility, resilience and resistance. Commodification is another one. There is such a strong tradition of craft attached to the discipline of ceramics, which has historically positioned ceramic works as commodified objects. This historical context has provided me with the opportunity to explore ideas of commodification in my work. I enjoy challenging perceptions of ceramics by experimenting with what clay can do and how it can be presented within an installation based practice. Godfrey: I find what you say about commodification very interesting. Can you give an example of how
you “explore ideas of commodification in your work”? Valenzuela: The most recent example would be my solo exhibition Cheap Tricks. This exhibition presented large steel structures that referenced paipitan (a contraption used for transporting livestock in Batangas), inside which ceramic forms hung from butcher’s hooks like lumps of meat. Circling around these structures were ceramic shark fins. Part slaughterhouse and part feeding frenzy, this installation explored the violence of consumption and commodification. For me at the time, these concerns related to the state of the Philippines and the treatment of people within an unchecked capitalist system. But my work usually has a few layers, and it
LV SHANCHUAN Kongming Lanterns No 2 (detail), 35.43 x 47.24 in / 90 x 120 cm, mixed media on canvas, 2019
O CA VILLAMIEL Stephanie Frondoso You have used materials from nature (feathers, coconut shells, charcoal) and materials that are man-made (dolls, nails). How do you decide on what kind of material to accumulate for your work? Oca Villamiel: The materials I use come from unique accidental reasons-- no particular place. I used to participate in bird shows, and ended up collecting feathers in bottles. I then thought, what if there were more? In my province of Quezon, I would notice mounds and mounds of copra - those are what I used for the coconut work presented at AFP 2019. When I visited Payatas, I saw dolls and doll heads. I find my inspiration wherever I happen to be at the moment. Some works are happy accidents. Frondoso: I observed that you collect a massive volume of each material that interests you, even if it takes many years. Why are you interested in amassing large quantities? Villamiel: There is power in repetition. When I visited the Jewish
Museum in Berlin, I came across the work of Menache Kadisman entitled “Shalekhet” or “Fallen Leaves”. It is made up of more than 10,000 faces cut out from heavy iron plates. I have traveled to Japan numerous times, and have visited many temples. The Sanjusangendo Temple in Kyoto houses 1,001 statues of Kannon - the Buddhist goddess of mercy. Also in Kyoto, Otagi Nenbutsu-ji Temple has around 1,200 Buddhist statues while Adashino Nenbutsu-ji Temple has approximately 8,000 statues along its paths. Thousands of statues can be found on Mount Koya in Osaka. Many times I would be working on a sculpture that would end up becoming installations - like my work with carabao horns. Like Pollock’s large canvasses to Klee’s small works, scale comes naturally. Frondoso: Most of these materials are discards, yet you are able to create work from them that are very well made and cleanly finished. Does your background as a set designer have an influence on this? Other artists also use found
objects but they have very raw aesthetics, different from yours. Villamiel: My background in set design only gave me work experience, being under pressure. I studied art, and learned under FB Concepcion and Lao Lianben. I visit museums and draw, that is how and where I learn. Every artist has his own load and feel. My art comes from my experience. We don’t get influenced; we get inspired. Going to museums opened up my mind: seeing modern masters like Cezanne or Rothko, and especially Van Gogh. We cannot compare artists. Like I said, we don’t get influenced; we get inspired. I have visited war museums, and it inspires me to express my desire to end war, to have peace.
was also a bit of a reaction to the highly commodified nature of the art scene. By hanging the ceramic works from butcher’s hooks like cuts of meat, I sought to highlight the commodification of ceramics (or art objects more generally). But I also made the show quite grotesque, a sort of anti-aesthetic approach to ceramics, to simultaneously undermine the ability for these works to be commodified. I don’t have any issue with selling my works, but I think I was resisting a pressure that I felt to make a certain kind of work. A few found the works crude, but I enjoyed the mixed reactions from audiences. It was liberating for me to resist the temptation to make pretty, methodical and saleable objects.
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AR T I N FOR M A L / M AT E R I A L S OF T HE AR TIST, ALT PHILIPPINES 2020
K R ISTA NOGUERAS Stephanie Frondoso: How did you start working with ceramics? Krista Nogueras: About five years ago, I suffered from a severe panic attack brought about by sudden tragic personal events. That led to prolonged chronic anxiety and symptoms beyond my control and understanding. I started therapy, and my doctor suggested that I try pursuing one my biggest frustrations. So I decided to sign up for a ceramic workshop at UP. Since then, my ceramic work and my continued investigation into psychology has become invariably linked. Frondoso: How did working with ceramics help you? Nogueras: It has been scientifically proven that going barefoot on the beach or in the garden is calming because one’s skin is touching the earth. Working with clay is mentally grounding. I love that clay is visceral—I enjoy the push and pull, tearing and molding. I welcome the solitude. I do most of my sculpting at home. While working, I get lost in time and converse with myself as well as with the material. My journey of working with clay has been like a long retreat. I am always looking forward to what
will come next in the endless learning curve. Frondoso: What are some of the things you have learned while working with clay? Nogueras: Clay has been a teacher of both the technicalities of the material and also the philosophical aspect of being human. It has many polarities. Its malleability makes it seems like it is easy to work with but I realized that clay is not tamed right away. The clay is the master until you know it very well. You must take time to know it. Firing is a humbling experience because sometimes upon opening the kiln, the ceramic object explodes. It has ta ught me the art of letting go. It constantly challenges the ego. Glazing is a scientific way of coloring clay. When you apply pink, it could change to gray after firing. Therefore while using a color, I must train my mind to convert a color that I see to the color it is meant to change into. This applies to life in that you can’t always plan what you would like to happen. Frondoso: How do you use clay to realize your concepts? Nogueras: My concepts tackle our battle with our mental state, which can be especially misun-
derstood when one is a woman. For my serpent work Lake Predicament, I explored ideas on the primal reflexes of humans and animals towards fear and danger. While researching on fear and anxiety, I stumbled upon the term “desensitization” which is the process of gradually exposing oneself to triggers, beginning with a photo of it, then perhaps to its sounds, and then finally to the trigger itself. One of the most fascinating facts I discovered during my research is that the heart beats the same way when one is facing danger and when one is experiencing love at first sight. I became interested in the psychology of the different selves and how I can fully translate theories into a tangible object. Life experiences are the material of an artist, interwoven in different contexts and with a tangible output. Frondoso: What type of clay do you use? Nogueras: I often use Thai clay mixed with terracotta because that is what is usually available. I also experiment by mixing my own clay. The ceramic community here always shares recipes and make test tiles together. It is necessary to collaborate to learn techniques that can’t be found in books. One of my
favorite community efforts was when our ceramics group went to Mindoro where we went hunting for different kinds of rocks in the mountains. We manually pulverized the rocks and turned them into glazes. Frondoso: Will you be delving into other concepts going forward? Nogueras: I am fascinated with exoskeletal forms, such as what crabs have. Along the same theme of the different selves, I would like to try to examine the phrase “a shell of your former self” by using x-ray images in making sculptural forms. I would also like to try infusing metal with clay. I was originally a metal sculptor and am now ready to bring together the two materials I am familiar with. I no longer view my anxiety as a negative thing. It has heightened my sensitivity in a good way. I am always looking forward to more realizations that working with clay will bring me. `
M AT E R I A L S O F T H E A R T I S T ALT PHI LI PPI N E S 2 020, FE B R UA R Y 14 - 16, 202 0 R A E NA A B E LLA
JA N BA LQ U I N
PAB LO CAPAT I I I I
J C JAC I N TO
NEIL PASIL AN
MARK VAL ENZUEL A
TOSHA A LB O R
N I C E BU E N AVE N T U R A
LEC C RU Z
LU I MED I N A
EL AINE ROBERTO-NAVAS
OCA V IL L AMIEL
J UA N ALCA Z A R E N
C H A R L E S BU E N C ON S EJ O
MO N I CA D ELGAD O
ELLA MEN D O Z A
LV SHANCHUAN
ALV IN ZAF`RA
B R IS A A M I R
ZE A N CA BA N G I S
WI N N I E GO
KRI STA N O GU ERAS
RODEL TAPAYA
COSTANTINO ZICARELLI
LEAD CURATOR Tony Godfrey
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Tina Fernandez
Artinformal
Makati
Greenhills
CO-CURATOR & EXHIBITION DESIGNER Stephanie Frondoso
TEAM Romano Abad Lanie Alona Riese Cayco Gino Dioneza Journey Esguerra Niki Esguerra Koki Lee Julius Navela Sheila Awingan Charlie Lapad Arnel Arborilla
EMAIL info@artinformal.com
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