Facets of Manhood



Amirasolo and Other Essays

Part 3. In my Book

Essay 43. FACETS OF MANHOOD

by Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol 

The setting of the painting "Seraglio Fantasy" is Lido Beach in Noveleta, Cavite. The model for the foreground figure is my wife Carina. The photograph I used as reference was a picture I took of her at the resort when we and her high school 'barkadas' went there sometime in 1981. The naked figures behind are mannequins that were supposedly brought to life.

An oil painting on canvas, Seraglio Fantasy is a relatively small work, measuring just 2 X 2 feet, I guess I can consider it as the 'piece de resistance' of my second solo show at the Crucible Gallery because it was the highest-priced painting I've sold up to that time.

Seraglio Fantasy was one of the three oil paintings on canvas I exhibited in that 2007 solo exhibit. The other two are "Trekkers' Bliss (Taal Crater Lake) and "Snorkeler's Blues (Ungab Rock Formation)". The rest of the artworks are acrylics on paper.

Months before the show, which also featured the Brothers Grimm fairy tales illustrations I did for the book "Long Ago and Far Away", Crucible Gallery President Sari Ortiga suggested that I do oil paintings on canvas because they sell better than works on paper. He must be right, because the Seraglio Fantasy and the two other oils were bought by a single collector.

I was no longer confident of my oil painting skills before starting work on Seraglio Fantasy because it would be the first time since 1988 that I would be touching oil paint again. The medium I was most comfortable with after that year was acrylic, which I used the transparent watercolor way, for the Illustrations I did on paper. 

This exhibit - titled "Magic and Machismo" - marked my return to 'serious painting' after more than twenty years of working as illustrator, first as editorial cartoonist and later on as book illustrator. It was a comeback too for the surrealist in me, because aside from Seraglio Fantasy, I also exhibited two other paintings that are similarly surrealist in tone and form - "Happy Man" and "Supremacy of Eve".

Tahanan Books publisher Reni Roxas asked me, weeks before the opening, what is the theme or title of my show. I gave her the tentative title, "Facets of Manhood', and explained that it was because the paintings I will exhibit belong to my so-called machismo series. I can still remember to this day Reni's reaction to what I said. She raised an eyebrow - which must be her way of expressing disapproval of the machismo word without saying it.

There were two guests-of-honor at the opening of my show. Two publishers. One was Isagani Yambot, publisher of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, and the other, Reni Roxas.

I must have sent already a letter of thanks to the Metrobank Foundation for their 30 thousand pesos exhibition grant. I'm thanking them again now for that. That exhibition grant was the 'bonus' bestowed on Metrobank painting contest winners, and I was given that because I was not only one of the three Best Entry winners in their very first competition in 1984, but also the co-winner, after the second round of judging, of the grand prize together with Roberto Feleo.

I also thank the highly-respected art critic Constantino Tejero for writing a review of that Magic and Machismo show. I remember myself  buying 10 copies of the Philippine Daily Inquirer on the day the review was published. Tejero's review appeared in the June 25, 2007 issue of the newspaper. That day was my birthday, that's why Tejero had in effect given me a birthday gift without him knowing it.












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