My Surrealist Evolution

Amirasolo and other Essays            

Part 2. My Trip Around the Art World

Essay 15. MY SURREALIST EVOLUTION

By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol

In 1974, news about a surrealist group being formed spread in the atelier of the University of Santo Tomas College of Architecture and Fine Arts (USTCAFA). Spearheading the organizing effort was Instructor Glory Crumb-Rogers. The group she formed then held a series of art exhibits. Titled "Message of a Surrealist", those shows were the first concerted thrusts to popularize surrealism in the Philippines.

The exhibiting artists were mostly students, and among the names I remember as founding members of that group were Robert Villanueva, Ricardo Laxamana, Edwin Diamante, Aton Roxas, Crispin Villafria, jr., Merit Evangelista, Jacinto Titus Cura, and Salvador Jun Diaz. Aside from Glory Crumb-Rogers, another instructor who was an active participant in the surrealist exhibits was Roda Recto. There were others who joined the group later - like Bobby Romero, who remains a staunch adherent of surrealism to this day.

An invitation for the opening of their first exhibit was shared with me by Jun Diaz, and while I was reading it, I discovered that I missed listing among the founding members four names: Raquel Lazaro, Ramon Agapay, Daro Galvan, and Lito Mayo. The event, held at the lobby of the UST Main Building, ran from January 20 to 29, 1975.

These USTCAFA surrealists appeared in the Philippine art scene years after Galo Ocampo painted "Nuclear Ecce Homo", which, according to an article I've read decades ago, was considered to be the first Filipino surrealist painting. The most celebrated member of that group was Robert Villanueva, who later on, in the guise of an Igorot shaman, made his mark as a conceptual and installation artist. His 1989 installation, "Archetypes: Cordillera Labyrinth", installed on the Cultural Center of the Philippines grounds earned him wide critical acclaim.

My earliest memory of Villanueva was of him doing a painting of a man which looked to me like the crucified Christ. My memory of that painting is already hazy, but I remember seeing there a string with a carpenter's plumb bob at its end hanging from one arm of what I vaguely remember as a cross. The cross is planted on barren soil that stretches to infinity, very much similar to the landscapes that Salvador Dali loved to paint.

My close buddy Jun Diaz, suggested that we join the surrealist group. Jun joined together with another classmate, Aton Roxas. I didn't.
A precocious boy, Roxas was already deep into surrealism even while we were only college sophomores. While we his painting neophyte classmates are still groping for a style, Aton was already painting large-scale surrealist works strongly reminiscent of the works of Dali, Magritte, and Miro.

One reason I avoided joining the surrealist group was because I was not yet hooked on surrealism then. The paintings I admired most at that time were those of Michelangelo and Botong Francisco. Although Villanueva's painting of the crucified Christ amazed me no end, it was to Lito Balagtas' Botong-inspired Angono genres that I gravitated.

Another reason was this: surrealism was formerly anathema to me. I first learned of surrealism in 1970. That was after the Bolivian painter Benjamin Mendoza attempted to kill Pope Paul VI with a knife during a Papal visit here. Interviewed years later, Mendoza said that his true motive was just to gain attention, which he definitely got. If not for that one act that earned him global notoriety, Mendoza would have remained obscure, a surrealist painter known only in his home country.

A painting by Mendoza I still remember to this day depicts a skewered naked woman intertwined with a snake being roasted. That painting was repulsive to me then, it still is repulsive to me now.

It was only in 1981, when I saw in a book Salvador Dali's painting "Sea-Shade-Dog", that surrealism caught my fancy. I never thought that a surrealist painting can be that charming. The painting depicts a naked girl lifting the edge of a blanket that doubles as the sea, and underneath which lies a sleeping dog. I was so enthralled by that painting that I decided, right then and there, to become a surrealist.

I wanted to buy the book, but I didn't have enough money that day. When I returned weeks later to buy the book, it was no longer there. In its stead was a thicker more expensive book costing around 500 pesos, which was a lot of money in 1981. Luckily, I have more than enough money that time to buy that thicker Dali book. That book, "The World of Salvador Dali" by Robert Descharnes, became my painting bible of sorts throughout the 1980s.

Surrealism is a no-holds-barred style that flaunts it's irreverence and smashes icons left and right, a style that suits both the angry and the libidinous young men just fine. I thus find it useful in depicting not only my fantasies but also my political advocacy as well.

I'm admitting now that all of my supposedly surrealist paintings weren't strictly surrealist, because for a painting to be considered as such, it shouldn't be the product of a conscious creative process. That is, true surrealist artworks should be woven in the subconscious---in  dreams---and created by chance and other 'automatist' and non-deliberate art-making processes.

My paintings from that period were nothing of the sort. Nothing accidental or dream-induced was involved in their creation. My paintings from 1980 to 1990 belong more to the social realist movement with their angry tone and overt proletarian slant. But I did used surrealist iconography in heaps. Images of levitating bodies, mutating forms, and incongruously juxtaposed objects were staples of my art then.

When I returned to serious painting in 2002, I still managed to come up with a painting that is social realist in tone and surrealist in imagery. That painting, "Happy Man", is a portrait of an obese man. Supposedly a corrupt bureaucrat attired in barong Tagalog, the man is depicted with his head zipped open exposing a brain that is nothing more than a clump of naked women. He holds a rooster in his massive hands to symbolize his other vice, gambling. Although also a commentary on social issues, Happy Man is already watered-down social realism. The anger is no longer there.

It was in 2008 when a change, in both theme, form, and technique occurred in my art. That was the time when I eschewed political themes altogether and just focused mostly on depicting myths, musicians, and the fantasies which any healthy male would indulge in from time to time. I've lost my appetite for engaging in political discourse via my paintings, choosing instead to tackle themes that are inoffensive and likeable to most.

The present day social realists and their hardcore counterparts of the 1980s may accuse me of selling out, of chucking off the ideals of protest art for more personal or worldly concerns---like one's libido for example. My answer to that is, that's true. But who cares? It's more fun to be naughty from time to time than to be angry forever anyway.

As painter Monnar Baldemor said: "Ganyan dapat mga artist. Kailangan flexible ka. Hindi puro angst. Meron din naman tayong lighter side." (Artists should be like that. You should be flexible. Not all angst. We also have our lighter side.)

We'll said, Monnar.

(The black and white photos in the photo collage above show the original members of the UST surrealist group. The founder of the group, Professor Glory Crumb-Rogers, is the mestiza wearing a striped vest. The colored images were a few samples of my surrealist paintings from the 1980s up to 2005)