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NEW
works by Edgar Fernandez after a pause of several years
are likely to attract the attention of art lovers and
admirers of his work. Gallery Nine at SM Megamall is
the venue for his ongoing show with sculptor Carlito
Ortega.
Fernandez has been well-known for his iconic large-scale
tableau, such as his series of mother-and-child
paintings including Hanap Ay Laya, with the
mother figure within a background rich in indigenous
symbols, alibata texts and dense tropical foliage. The
vivid yellow draped figure suspended between two perils
in Kahapon, Ngayon at Pangarap is deeply engraved
in the collective memory. Perhaps one of the last in the
series is the Unfinished Painting of the Present,
a huge mural exhibited in the Queensland Art Gallery for
the First Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art
held in
Brisbane,
Australia.
However,
the lacuna after Fernandez’s last works was a period of
assiduous exploration followed by the production of a
new series, The Studio. He probably felt that he
needed the period of seeming idleness to be able to
introduce new themes and approaches in a more gradual
way. For he surprisingly takes up the themes of love and
war that he views as intertwined in our time, like the
yang and yin of beauty and destruction, or love
threatened by the ever-present monster of war. For the
first time, the artist takes up the figure of the nude
as a symbol of imperiled beauty. In his works,
influenced by European masters to which he returns for
inspiration, the nude is serenely classical in form, the
contours softly traced by the light, the textures
lifelike and smooth to enhance the golden tones. In the
painting in the show, the female nude has her back
turned to the viewer. In a vulnerable pose, she lies
somewhat inertly on crumpled white beddings, with her
dark head pressed on the pillow on the farther side,
while, beside her, a male child looks up in an air of
bewilderment. A reflection on the left shows that there
is just a thin sheet of glass that separates her from
the armed soldier that is all but ready to lunge at her
from the wintry outdoors. The helmeted soldier, like a
monster, brandishes a sword at the two living beings. He
himself is painted a diffuse blue, unlike the color of
humans. But the small red button of a clown on his face
deconstructs his fearsome menace, and all the terror of
war, though destructive it may be, is the work of a
blundering idiot. Snow falls like soft flakes on the
outdoor scene and it is repeated in the indoors by the
crumpled sheets on which the nude lies, its color and
beauty affirming life in the midst of the endless
suffering of the Iraqi people at the hands of US
invading forces.
Likewise, and for the first time, Fernandez makes
quotations from the Old European masters such as Paolo
Veronese and Diego Velasquez. The other large work in
the exhibit is a transposition from the Italian
Renaissance to contemporary times of Veronese’s painting
Mars and Venus United by Love (c. 1570). In both
paintings, Venus, the Roman goddess of love, makes an
offering to Mars, the Roman god of war, of her own
beauty and that of nature which surrounds their alcove.
Amid classical columns and foliage, she stands regally
in a higher position, while the god of war bends forward
to acknowledge her gifts. Meanwhile, below them, a cupid
ties their legs together with a ribbon to symbolize
their unity and, thus, the taming of Mars, as at his
back another cupid bars the advance of his warhorse.
In
Fernandez’s painting, the two deities occupy the same
position as in the Veronese, but they are given
distinctly Asian features. Instead of a crown, the
dark-haired Venus has a slim crescent moon for a halo.
Mars wears a green metal suit of oriental design and has
a cache of weapons derived from indigenous and other
Asian cultures. Below them is also a boy-child in
costume who binds both their legs with a curling ribbon.
Instead of an intimate alcove, the deities are flanked
by heavy floral curtains and bamboo palisades, as on a
stage, but overlooking a vast panorama of nature. The
artist focuses mainly on the indigenization of the
figures and the setting, and the contradiction between
love and beauty. While wars have gone on from the
earliest times, to the Renaissance and to our times, as
can be seen in the evolution of weapons, armored
vehicles and other accessories of war, love and beauty
may, in an ideal world, triumph in the end with the
marriage of Venus and Mars. But that will be another
story and a protracted one.
There is
also another new element in the work of Fernandez, and
that is the erotic, as related to the theme of love and
beauty. One painting, Himig ng Halik, has two
figures, a man, in dark shadows representing night, and
a woman, in bright light representing day. The man plays
the violin laid on the woman’s arm in a romantic mood.
Langit at Lupa shows the sky as a man, langit,
kissing the lips of a woman, lupa. A painting in wintry
blue and white is entitled Kilig ng Halik.
Nevertheless, his most beautiful erotic work is the
reclining nude in Digmaan.
The
sculptor Carlito Ortega makes a good match with Edgar
Fernandez. His striking bright brass sculptures are
characterized by a thorough knowledge of the human body
and its execution in sculpture. There are two marked
qualities in his work. One is the great variety of
stances, gestures, poses and positions in which the
figures are uninhibited and flexible, without stress or
strain. The figures playing musical instruments know no
restraint in their musical expression as movements of
the hands and feet fly hither and thither in pure
pleasure. His knowledge of the flexibility of the body
is indeed remarkable, and since his people live in the
bosom of nature they know no bounds in their musicality,
except in conditions of extreme deprivation which they
may be going through in these times.
The
other characteristic is his choice of subjects from the
indigenous cultural communities of Mindanao who live in
the hinterlands. He does his sculpture as a tribute to
the people who live away from the cities and observe
their own culture and rituals, as he himself is part of
them. It is a marvel how Ortega was able to come to the
city and share his talent in metal sculpture with Manila
urbanites. It is possible that he continues in the
traditions of metalworking in brass and copper of the
old Mindanao communities. To these, he has added his
great talent, his memory of and love for his people. |
