VISUAL ARTS WITH THE CORRESPONDING CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS
VISUAL ARTS An art form intended to be appreciated or perceived primarily by sight. The visual arts are art forms such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmsking, design, crafts, photography, video, film making, and architecture.
FAMOUS CONTEMPORARY VISUAL ARTISTS IN THE PHILIPPINES 1. Ronald Ventura • Ronald Ventura was born in Manila, Philippines. In 1993, the artist earned a BFA in Painting from the University of Santo Tomas. Since then, Ventura has continued to refine his signature style of multi-layered paintings, which utilize a broad range of imagery and tend to focus around the human form. In addition to paintings, Ventura also makes sculptures that explore the same themes and aesthetics as his two-dimensional work. • Ventura is a contemporary Filipino artist known for his intermingling of hyper-realism, cartoons, and graffiti with both historical and Pop subject matter. His work portrays scenes of chaotic disarray, incorporating traditional Western and Asian mythologies with contemporary cultural symbols like Mickey Mouse.
RONALD VENTURA’S ARTWORKS
“Shadows”,2015 “Shadow Forest: Encounters and Explorations” Medium: Sculpture, Fiberglass, resin,metal Medium: Fiberglass, steel, resin, glass, paper, light box
FAMOUS CONTEMPORARY VISUAL ARTISTS IN THE PHILIPPINES 2. José Santos III • He was born in Manila, Philippines in 1970. He received his BFA from the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts where he also taught for several years. He currently lives and works in Manila, Philippines. • Santos’ early paintings consisted of collages and appropriated images from Western artworks, which he juxtaposed to create unexpected compositions. • His deliberate choice of subjects deal with a fascination with texture, and the selected objects, ones mined from the artist’s own immediate environs, show evidence of wear, tear and manipulation, each reflecting a peculiar history and scars bearing witness to it. In recent works, Santos continues his explorations of mundane objects, not merely to uncover their histories, but to complicate our perception and understanding of these everyday things.
JOSÉ SANTOS III’S ARTWORKS
“Push and Pull”
“Subconscious Upwellings”
“The Sitting”
FAMOUS CONTEMPORARY VISUAL ARTISTS IN THE PHILIPPINES 3. Sam Penaso • is a multi-talented artist who was born and brought up in Bohol. It was here he incubated his dreams of becoming an artist. He moved to Manila and completed a degree in Advertising from the Technological University of the Philippines. As a painter, sculptor and performance artist, Sam embodies the multi-media, cross-disciplinary character of Philippine contemporary art. • His paintings have also developed from his early works of realism to abstraction, and settling into his own distinct style with rudiments of portraiture. Sam adds his signature touch of the unexpected, incorporating numbers and letters that adds texture and depth, not only appealing to the visual sense, but to the palpable senses as well.
SAM PENASO’S ARTWORKS
FAMOUS CONTEMPORARY VISUAL ARTISTS IN THE PHILIPPINES 4. Dennis E. Montera • The abstract expressionist hails from the tropical island of Cebu and has spent more than a decade as a full-time Associate Professor for the Fine Arts Program of the University of the Philippines. • Montera’s own brand of process-oriented abstraction narrates the sights, sounds, interactions, and experiences he masterfully translates onto the canvas with acrylic and non-traditional media. • Aside from being part of the academe, Montera also believes in the community art development being the past president of Pusod Cebu Visual Artists, Inc. a founding member of the Creative Cebu Council Inc, and the current Vice-Head of the Committee on Visual Arts of the National Commission for the Culture and the Arts.
DENNIS E. MONTERA’S ARTWORKS
Winter Dreams, Summer Wishes, 2016 Mixed Media on Canvas
Ring of Fire I, 2016 Mixed Media on Canvas
Spring Awakening I, 2016 Mixed Media on Canvas
FAMOUS CONTEMPORARY VISUAL ARTISTS IN THE PHILIPPINES 5. Jeanroll Ejar • The artist was born in a family of wood carvers from Iloilo and Negros Oriental. In the farthest corner of his family’s workshop, 30-year-old Jeanroll Ejar creates masterpieces from scrap, turning strips of wood into striking artworks. • The unassuming artist, who shyly dreams of becoming a National Artist someday, spends most of his time juggling business, family obligations and arts. He raised this ion combined with talent and exposure to the next level. In his workplace he discovered that with imaginative mind and precise hands, trash can be converted into novelty artworks. • Presently, he actively works with the group of Ilonggo artists to rekindle the art scene in Iloilo, and to encourage Ilonggo artists to rise above themselves, too.
JEANROLL EJAR’S ARTWORKS “The Reflection of Confusion” Medium: reflector and aluminum sticker on autofinished plywood
Ejar’s Retazo and broken things Art
“Soar High You and I” Medium: Hardwood, rope, sawdust, resin
FAMOUS CONTEMPORARY VISUAL ARTISTS IN THE PHILIPPINES 6. Costantino Zicarelli • He was born September 15,1984 to an Italian engineer father and a Filipina nurse mother in Kuwait and spent his formative years in Italy. He later on moved to the Philippines where he earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts Major in Advertising from the University of Santo Tomas. • Belongs to the new generation of artists whose paintings are difficult to like but harder to ignore. His art differs from the standards as he chooses to paint the deviant and morose. With his art, Costantino Zicarelli hopes to change how viewers look with disfavor and antipathy paintings that are not eye candies. His works reflect his belief that an artist must be bolder in his stance and subjective feelings and emotions must be given priority than reality or nature objectively. He is a selfproclaimed failed musician and graffiti artist whose works reflect the history of drone metal, black metal, and everything rock n’ roll.
CONSTANTINO ZICARELLI’S ARTWORKS “Until the Light Takes Us VI”
“Pedro Ubaldo Ain't Holy Anymore” (oil on canvas)
“In the end it is just another forever painting” (oil on canvas)
FAMOUS CONTEMPORARY VISUAL ARTISTS IN THE PHILIPPINES 7. Rodel Tapaya • He was born in 1980 in Montalban, Rizal, situated a few kilometers away from Manila. After winning an international painting tilt, he pursued intensive drawing and painting courses at Parsons School of Design in New York and from the University of Art and Design in Helsinki prior to graduating from the College of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines. • Among his achievements are the 2012 “Thirteen Artists Awards” from the Cultural Center of the Philippines, being shortlisted twice for the “Ateneo Art Award” and winning a jury prize at the “Phillip-Morris Philippine Art Awards” in 2007.
RODEL TAPAYA’S ARTWORKS
“Cane of Kabunian, Numbered But Cannot Be Counted”
“Mountain Fantasies”
FAMOUS CONTEMPORARY VISUAL ARTISTS IN THE PHILIPPINES 8. Ray Mudjahid Ponce Millan • Better known as Kublai Millan or Kublai is a prolific artist from Mindanao was born on July 8, 1974 in Cotabato City. Kublai started his career when he made all the artworks both inside and outside of his family’s hotel; Ponce Suites. His mother is the manager of the hotel. He studied at the University of the Philippines for his higher education and attained a degree of Fine Arts. After his graduation from college he returned to Mindanao, painting and sculpting subjects relating to the culture of his hometown. •
He is known for his giant sculptures. Aside from being a sculptor he is also an art photographer, painter, digital artist and performance artist.
KUBLAI MILLAN’S ARTWORKS The giant durian outside Davao International Airport
Towering Philippine Eagle statue at the border of Davao and Bukidnon
“THE AIM OF ART IS TO REPRESENT NOT THE OUTWARD APPEARANCE OF THINGS, BUT THEIR INWARD SIGNIFICANCE.”
- ARISTOTLE
GROUP 3 • Sheen Jexslie R. Colada • Ma. Veronica M. Rodriguez • Ruzia Nika D. Wayco • Christine V. Bato-on • Marichelle P. Caro • Cristelle G. Oliveros • Ivan Joseph D. Bonghanoy • Kenneth P. Padernal • John Mark M. Cabatu-an • Leo Salo
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