3.27. 07 art review

The return of the natives

Opening just three days apart, the exhibits of Ronniel Bercero Compra -- his is an epynomous exhibit with his name being the title of the show -- at the CAP Art Center (March 16,) and Michael Wharque Edpalina, “Raw Coco,” at UP Cebu's Small Gallery (March 19) close this season of annual thesis exhibits of the graduating class of the UP Cebu Fine Arts program.

Introducing Edpalina and his work at the opening – a similar honor or chore he also did for the eight other students in this batch -- Prof. Dennis Montera, the professor for this thesis class said,”Here is the future of Cebu contemporary art.”

Having been at the thesis deliberation of this class, seeing the sample works that became the basis of the deliberation and having seen some of the final exhibits with many of the final works evolving, some drastically based on the critiques and inputs in that same deliberation, this enthusiastic stamp of approval from and fearless forecast of Prof. Montera is understandable.

This, I believe, without too much extrapolation, also extends to Compra's work which can be gleaned from another of Prof. Montera's pronouncements in that same introduction about this exhibit following, though in an unplanned manner, the tradition of “saving the best for last.”

Indeed, these two exhibits share, beyond the approbation of Prof. Montera, many similarities, the least of which, is their being heavy weights. And, literally, too.

These two exhibits show how any attempt at moving forward, in this case towards a stylistic practice within the western canonical history that is now supposed to be encompassed into the post-modern or contemporary, always casts an eye backwards, impelled even obliquely by nostalgia.

Here, these two artists dare look backwards all the way to the beginning of creation, to nature. And, more importantly, not just to mimic nature, to appropriate nature and capture or re-present it in a two-dimensional picture.

Consequently, their works are heavy. Their works are made from organic materials and large scale. This bulk inherent in their works, is a statement that, by itself, already speaks volumes of their artistic ambitions. A reach, as we shall see, that is matched by their creative and technical grasp.

Still, their works cannot be more different.

Compra's work is more earth bound. His dense tangle of corn cob husks, animal (cow or carabao) skull -- notably jaw -- parts, bones and various twigs, stalks and branches woven together, stuck or glued on a background of dark, ash or murky green and burnt ochre speaks of inevitable and permanent decay. This despite, or more so because, in some works, they are fashioned, for example, into a kite that defies flight or an arch -- a l'arc de triomphe, as it were -- that celebrates chaos instead of classical triumphalism.

Yet, in an acceptance or a resignation that any work about natural decay or entropy must finally surrender to the logic of ultimate disappearance, all these are held together with a technological product, that contribute greatly to the destruction of the natural environment; resin, the precursor of modern petrochemical plastic. Copious amounts of it, actually, giving the works an unnatural embalmed sheen.

This irony -- uncommented upon in his exhibit statement, perhaps undiscovered as yet by the artist -- makes Compra a realist, but not a naturalist. Or it makes him an anti-natural naturalist. This innocence lends gravitas to his works where otherwise it would be dangerously close to simply being cute, as in grunge cute or junk cute.

For his part, Edpalina, seeks loftier, thus, lighter ground: The incredible lightness of being. Immediately, one senses in his pieces a master conjurer at work; playing off the heaviness of materiality with the sheer grace of sensuality in organic, or, as he prefers, biomorphic form.

The material of choice for Edpalina also makes us sit up and take notice: Raw coconut shell. Incidentally, this material suffers from a bad press by being referred to, complete with the gesture of knocking the head, as being akin to an empty or slow brain. Not in the hands of Edpalina, though.

He takes this assumed emptiness and makes it bloom. With sheer inventiveness, he fashions this humble hero of the once king coconut industry into wry works of art, at once softly tickling our funny bones while lighting up our wonder wands at how something so familiar can be so fresh and different; At how they can have the same sensual qualities of a soft insect and yet, with it – the pointed leaf-like protuberances in the free standing and mobile works, for example – there is also the chilling hint of danger and pain.

Clearly, Edpalina's naturalism is an abstract one. His naturalism references the natural world or natural materials in so far it is the original source of form and texture. Beyond that there is only the constructs of an artist who realizes that this is the ultimate power of art; the power of creation, recreation and even destruction, mostly of the still dominant mimetic myth of the 'realism' or 'naturalism' of the plastic arts.

Yes, indeed, this is the future of contemporary art in Cebu. But, it is only one future among many. A future that already is now very interesting and we can only hope that these two artists can continue on this path least traveled; one foot in the future, the other, firmly in the past.