Taking portraits of the Filipino artist
Published Mar 3, 2018 04:05 pm
By Krizette Chu
Portrait by Noel Pabalate
For someone who professes to not caring about his own legacy, who shies from speaking about his “identity,” the artist, painter, and veteran lensman Jose “Pinggot” Zulueta has ironically made it his life’s mission to chronicle those of his contemporaries.
As the creator and photographer behind the bestselling coffeetable book Filipino Artists in their Studios, Pinggot has invaded the most personal ateliers and workshops of some of the country’s most legendary painters, sculptors, and mixed media artists.
His labor of love is a massive 323-page book published by The Manila Bulletin that featured industry greats like Napoleon Abueva, BenCab, Federico Alcuaz, Manuel Baldemor, Renato Habulan, Raul Isidro, David Medalla, a paean to 75 of the greatest Filipino artists that ever lived.
Ambitious in scope, comprehensive by nature, painstakingly curated, this kind of project has never been attempted or done before.
The book gave the Philippines’ art fans an exclusive look at the spaces where great art is made, providing a glimmer of understanding of the idiosyncrasies, processes, and quirks of the artists. (Do you know Bencab’s studio is as huge as a full size basketball court and Antipas Delotavo’s, famous for his expansive murals, is the size of a small box, but brilliantly utilized with the use of mirrors?)
Within the year, the next volume, the second edition, is scheduled to be released, featuring yet another batch of the country’s most important artists. This time, there will be more of those young contemporary artists, the current toasts of the art world and the crème de la crème of today’s new generation, who are coming into an industry that only as recently as 10 years ago was tough to break into and survive in.
With today’s artmosphere more appreciative of new talent, and with a more competitive market, readers can expect a different kind of story and flavor from the 75 artists of volume 2. How will the new blood define their experiences and set up their work spaces?
Apart from paying homage to his colleagues, what drove Pinggot to create something this monumental?
“When I was a kid going into arts, we were discouraged by our parents because arts didn’t seem like a viable livelihood. Parents used to tell their kids, ‘anything but Fine Arts,’” says The Manila Bulletin photographer.
Pinggot, too, has a unique vantage point. His day job is as photojournalist for The Manila Bulletin, which puts him in an enviable position of having, in his own words, “a foot in the door of publishing, another foot in the door of the art world.”
He continues, “By putting this together, I wanted to inspire the next generation to believe that they can pursue their dreams as artists. By telling the stories of those who have come before them, of those who struggled not just individually but collectively as they pushed the industry to a better place, I hope the young ones learn from us.”
As he himself, Pinggot says, has been inspired in the course of doing the book. “As an artist myself, I had to be extra careful not to be too inspired that I start following their styles,” he laughs. “But when you’re there, seeing them work, seeing the masterpieces created in their studios, it’s like you inadvertently pick up their styles, their mood, their energy, and I have to be careful! I am inspired by just how brilliant our artists in the Philippines are. I am inspired by how we can’t fit all these artists in one book.”
Visiting the studios also illuminate his own creative process. It helps him deal with his own work and, in some ways, sets him free to pursue his own art sans fear and pretensions.
His latest show, slated on March 8, called “Blinders,” features a series of paintings he calls his “most honest and raw” yet.
Along with Spanish artist Cesar Caballero and British artist Simon Mortimer, Pinggot will continue from where he left off from his last show “Catharsis,” using images of the human face to denote the purge of emotions. Only this time, the paintings focus less on the face, and more on the process of creation. “The artmaking,” he says. Here, the textures, materials take center stage. The face taking shape is an afterthought.
On a still unfinished piece, paint is splattered violently across the canvas—done almost in a state of mental fugue. “Under those colors are my emotions,” he says.
In this series of five paintings, Pinggot reveals his truest self. “They’re all self portraits,” he admits wryly. “Five portraits that show my loss of identity, my overwhelming sadness, my intense longing for my family.”
He whips himself into frenzy, working odd hours, from 2 a.m. until he exhausts himself. When he is done, he feels a cathartic sense of relief.
“This melancholia has followed me all my life, and it has become a part of me, there’s a longing I cannot explain,” he says. He has tried to subdue it, dabbling in cheerful geometric abstractions to drive away the somber mood that he feels has started to define his life and his works—and which he pursued for at least two years from 2014 to 2016—but finds himself staring forlornly at his canvas, with an urge to paint what he truly feels.
“I tried to veer into the non-representational, but I give up,” he shrugs, “I am drawn into doing autobiographical paintings.” Unlike other artists who have decided on a certain style to be identified with, Pinggot has swung on both ends of the pendulum, from abstractions to social realism, from painting seascapes to painting gory and dark shapes, to even creating installations out of found objects.
One of the biggest things he learned in pursuit of stories for the book, is that the only way a great artist stays true to his craft is to ignore the mechanisms of marketing in his work—ignore “branding,” ignore consciously crafting an identity, which runs counter to the basic tenets of selling their work.
“I do not create to sell, but to express, and I have come to accept that now, even when I was torn about it before,” he says. “My art speaks to those it resonates with. Life is too short to care about branding. Art is about who you are.”
And his book is an emphatic reminder—and a celebration—that one only needs to run on talent.
“The Filipino artist stands out—just look at the works of Jose Tence Ruiz, Rodel Tapaya, Ronald Ventura—our works are full of content and has an intellectual approach,” Pinggot says. “I’ve exhibited everywhere, from New York to New Zealand, and you could see how the Filipino artist has assimilated the best of our colonial cultures and made it their own. There is no artist like the Filipino artist.”
For someone who professes to not caring about his own legacy, who shies from speaking about his “identity,” the artist, painter, and veteran lensman Jose “Pinggot” Zulueta has ironically made it his life’s mission to chronicle those of his contemporaries.
As the creator and photographer behind the bestselling coffeetable book Filipino Artists in their Studios, Pinggot has invaded the most personal ateliers and workshops of some of the country’s most legendary painters, sculptors, and mixed media artists.
His labor of love is a massive 323-page book published by The Manila Bulletin that featured industry greats like Napoleon Abueva, BenCab, Federico Alcuaz, Manuel Baldemor, Renato Habulan, Raul Isidro, David Medalla, a paean to 75 of the greatest Filipino artists that ever lived.
Ambitious in scope, comprehensive by nature, painstakingly curated, this kind of project has never been attempted or done before.
The book gave the Philippines’ art fans an exclusive look at the spaces where great art is made, providing a glimmer of understanding of the idiosyncrasies, processes, and quirks of the artists. (Do you know Bencab’s studio is as huge as a full size basketball court and Antipas Delotavo’s, famous for his expansive murals, is the size of a small box, but brilliantly utilized with the use of mirrors?)
Within the year, the next volume, the second edition, is scheduled to be released, featuring yet another batch of the country’s most important artists. This time, there will be more of those young contemporary artists, the current toasts of the art world and the crème de la crème of today’s new generation, who are coming into an industry that only as recently as 10 years ago was tough to break into and survive in.
With today’s artmosphere more appreciative of new talent, and with a more competitive market, readers can expect a different kind of story and flavor from the 75 artists of volume 2. How will the new blood define their experiences and set up their work spaces?
Apart from paying homage to his colleagues, what drove Pinggot to create something this monumental?
“When I was a kid going into arts, we were discouraged by our parents because arts didn’t seem like a viable livelihood. Parents used to tell their kids, ‘anything but Fine Arts,’” says The Manila Bulletin photographer.
Pinggot, too, has a unique vantage point. His day job is as photojournalist for The Manila Bulletin, which puts him in an enviable position of having, in his own words, “a foot in the door of publishing, another foot in the door of the art world.”
He continues, “By putting this together, I wanted to inspire the next generation to believe that they can pursue their dreams as artists. By telling the stories of those who have come before them, of those who struggled not just individually but collectively as they pushed the industry to a better place, I hope the young ones learn from us.”
As he himself, Pinggot says, has been inspired in the course of doing the book. “As an artist myself, I had to be extra careful not to be too inspired that I start following their styles,” he laughs. “But when you’re there, seeing them work, seeing the masterpieces created in their studios, it’s like you inadvertently pick up their styles, their mood, their energy, and I have to be careful! I am inspired by just how brilliant our artists in the Philippines are. I am inspired by how we can’t fit all these artists in one book.”
Visiting the studios also illuminate his own creative process. It helps him deal with his own work and, in some ways, sets him free to pursue his own art sans fear and pretensions.
His latest show, slated on March 8, called “Blinders,” features a series of paintings he calls his “most honest and raw” yet.
Along with Spanish artist Cesar Caballero and British artist Simon Mortimer, Pinggot will continue from where he left off from his last show “Catharsis,” using images of the human face to denote the purge of emotions. Only this time, the paintings focus less on the face, and more on the process of creation. “The artmaking,” he says. Here, the textures, materials take center stage. The face taking shape is an afterthought.
On a still unfinished piece, paint is splattered violently across the canvas—done almost in a state of mental fugue. “Under those colors are my emotions,” he says.
In this series of five paintings, Pinggot reveals his truest self. “They’re all self portraits,” he admits wryly. “Five portraits that show my loss of identity, my overwhelming sadness, my intense longing for my family.”
He whips himself into frenzy, working odd hours, from 2 a.m. until he exhausts himself. When he is done, he feels a cathartic sense of relief.
“This melancholia has followed me all my life, and it has become a part of me, there’s a longing I cannot explain,” he says. He has tried to subdue it, dabbling in cheerful geometric abstractions to drive away the somber mood that he feels has started to define his life and his works—and which he pursued for at least two years from 2014 to 2016—but finds himself staring forlornly at his canvas, with an urge to paint what he truly feels.
“I tried to veer into the non-representational, but I give up,” he shrugs, “I am drawn into doing autobiographical paintings.” Unlike other artists who have decided on a certain style to be identified with, Pinggot has swung on both ends of the pendulum, from abstractions to social realism, from painting seascapes to painting gory and dark shapes, to even creating installations out of found objects.
One of the biggest things he learned in pursuit of stories for the book, is that the only way a great artist stays true to his craft is to ignore the mechanisms of marketing in his work—ignore “branding,” ignore consciously crafting an identity, which runs counter to the basic tenets of selling their work.
“I do not create to sell, but to express, and I have come to accept that now, even when I was torn about it before,” he says. “My art speaks to those it resonates with. Life is too short to care about branding. Art is about who you are.”
And his book is an emphatic reminder—and a celebration—that one only needs to run on talent.
“The Filipino artist stands out—just look at the works of Jose Tence Ruiz, Rodel Tapaya, Ronald Ventura—our works are full of content and has an intellectual approach,” Pinggot says. “I’ve exhibited everywhere, from New York to New Zealand, and you could see how the Filipino artist has assimilated the best of our colonial cultures and made it their own. There is no artist like the Filipino artist.”