Artist Statement: Magic and Machismo

Amirasolo and Other Essays

Part 2. My Trip Around the Art World

Essay 26. MAGIC AND MACHISMO

I signed a contract in 1999 to do the illustrations for what was supposed to be Tahanan Book's fairy tale trilogy. This is a three-volume compilation of fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm, and Charles Perrault. But I and Fran Ng, who did the retelling, only finished two---that of Andersen and the Brothers Grimm.

"Long Ago and Far Away", the compilation of ten Brothers Grimm fairy tales is another prized work. The result of nearly two years of highly-meticulous labor, I once more found my illustrations there worthy of being shown in a solo art exhibit. The Crucible Gallery agreed again to exhibit them.

Four illustrations were pre-sold, while the others were sold later. I also included in this show seven artworks that are not illustrations which were also sold. Long Ago and Far-away is the last book I illustrated for Tahanan.

A flattering afterword  to my illustration career with Tahanan was written by the highly respected art critic Constantino Tejero. His review of my second solo exhibit at the Crucible Gallery, titled "Illustration art as fine art", appeared in the June 25, 2007 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. The review was very positive, that's why that day, which also happened to be my birthday, became doubly special for me.

Had I not been discovered, so to speak, by Tahanan Books, I wouldn't have rediscovered the joys of serious painting. By serious painting, I mean the paintings I do for my personal delectation---not illustrations which are commissioned works, and which are required to hew closely to a given manuscript.

My second solo at the Crucible Gallery opened on March 13, 2007. It ran for two weeks. Below is the Exhibit Notes I wrote for this show:

MAGIC AND MACHISMO

My family and I live on top of what once was sea. Our house in Tondo sits on land reclaimed from Manila Bay, about a hundred meters away from the original edge of the beach. Not being originally land, our place was swampy, with snatches of murky pools of water trapped here and there, usually under each dwelling.

Our neighborhood is quintessential 'Erapland', where the measure of manhood is the size of one's brood. Also, vices reign supreme here. The menfolk, in faithful imitation of their flawed idol, flaunt their addictions, while the women play coy and indulge theirs a little furtively.

One would think that an artist requires a calm milieu to create art. Many artist do. But not me. My drawing table, the one I've used for eighteen years, faces a window. It really isn't a table, but just a piece of battered half-inch thick plywood hinged at the edge of the window sill.

Our neighbor to the left of the window operated a bookie, an illegal racehorse betting station. Another neighbor maintained two video-game machines, the sort where players insert one peso coins to start a game. These machines were patronized mostly by kids, unruly kids, who punctuate their utterances with expletives.

So, you can just imagine the combined aural assault mounted day in and day out by these kids and the bums who bet on the horses. Thus, I myself am amazed, if I may brag a little, by the painstaking quality of my output for the past four years. Despite the aggravations inflicted on me while I work, I still managed to slog along and turned out works so detailed that many who'll see them may conclude that they could only be the handiwork of a painter painting unharassed in an air-conditioned and commodious studio.

The two sets of artworks on view here, being of two distinct themes, were supposed to be shown in two separate non-simultaneous exhibitions. But the Crucible Gallery president Sari Ortiga dissuaded me and instead suggested that they be shown in one exhibit. He reasoned that what will be displayed won't be my treatment of any particular theme but my supposed expertise in my chosen technique, sharp focus realism.

So, the titles for the two separate art exhibits, "Old-fashioned Fairy Tale Art 2" (for the illustrations for the book "Long Ago and Far Away") and "Facets of Manhood" (for the paintings on machismo) were folded into the eponymous, yes, but bland and generic title, "ARNEL MIRASOL: ptgs & illus".

The theme of the fairytale illustrations need no elaboration, I think; so, I'll just expound on the theme of the paintings and the two cover art.

I have never handled a gamecock in my life, nor ever placed a bet on a cockfight. It may therefore come as a surprise to many why I chose to do a series of paintings on cockfighting. Tahanan Books publisher Reni Roxas inadvertently prompted me to do so. I once included a rooster in an illustration I did for them and she remarked that I am good at drawing roosters. So, I thought, why not? Why not exploit that skill and come up with a series of paintings depicting roosters. I therefore came up with three smallish paintings of cockers which I admit were influenced somewhat by Picasso's images of massive neo-classical figures.

Although I'm pleased with the finished works, my tentative sally into modernism, I realized that I really cannot sustain the momentum and go on turning out paintings belonging to what I called my "Anak ng Tupada" (Son of the Cockfight) Series.

I changed tack. I widened the scope of my theme which I now called Facets of Manhood, or my Machismo Series. I felt free then to start another suite, this time about divers, a subject which is more after my own heart for I do indulge in watersports.

Taking further advantage of the theme's widened scope, I decided to also include The "Imperialist Manifesto" which was used as cover art for a textbook on world history. The inclusion of this work may be perplexing and its link with my supposed theme may seem tenuous. But keener analysis allowed me to conclude that, indeed, imperialism is the ultimate manifestation of machismo.

Let me emphasize however that this work is not another leftist ranting in pictorial form. I used the term imperialist in its generic sense, that is to describe all the empire builders in history. Thus, the nations alluded to ought to be flattered because this illustration merely advances the thesis that the imperialists were the founders of civilizations.

I am a big fan of Ernest Hemingway, whose lifework as chronicler of the doings of the machos of the world earned him world renown. What he set out to chronicle in his writings I aim to depict in my paintings. But in matters of style, I daresay that we are antipodal. If his language is succinct, mine is not. You see, I have this strange compulsion to render forms in painstaking details, which I suspect is not really a smart way of doing things if I want to get rich quick.

This preoccupation with male vanity may invite questions on whether I intend to stick to this theme for the remaining course of my painting career. Of course not. This early, I've already started a series of paintings on women. My plan at this stage is to exhaust what is there to exhaust on machismo as a painting subject and hope that, along the way, I'll be able to get this Hemingwayesque fixation out of my system.