FOR student artists, life is like a jack-in-a-box. You never know if you’ll end up surprising your watchers, or if the glory of recognition will take you places. Like the Ayala Museum, for example, where a hundred of the best winning entries to the 44th Shell National Students Art Competition (Nsac) are on view for quiet reverie until October 27.

To the winners of the longest-running countrywide art contest exclusive to college students: a hearty congratulations. Give yourselves a pat on the back, and pray. Be humble and rest not on your laurels—because, speaking frankly, your careers have just begun.

Said National Artist for Sculpture Napoleon Abueva in a previous interview: “A winner of the Nsac is also likely to win other current competitions―since the Shell contest is, by far, the most rigorous in its standards.” Many of the past Shell winners have matured and are now part of the country’s elite circle of visual artists. Some of their works have been fought over by collectors, made news at auction houses, and now hang among the finest our civilization has produced.   

Among the previous winners are Jose Joya, Federico Aguilar Alcuaz, Juvenal Sanso, Ang Kiukok, BenCab, Danilo Dalena, Manuel Rodriguez Jr., Charito Bitanga, Angel Cacnio, Angelito Antonio, Nestor Vinluan, Edgar Doctor, Norma Belleza, Fred Liongoren, Pandy Aviado, Prudencio Lamarroza, Raul Isidro, Fernando Sena, Raul Lebajo, Junyee, Norberto Carating, Imelda Cajipe-Endaya and Mario Parial.

This year’s roster of judges should make one cringe at merely joining. The list boasts such living luminaries as Ronald Ventura, Dalena, Vinluan,  Antonio, Carating, Isidro, Cacnio, Rock Drilon, Soler Santos, Antipas Delotavo, Renato Habulan, Pablo Baens Santos, Dopy Doplon, Lex Kabigting, Mario Parial, Jose Tence Ruiz, Raul Lebajo and many others who have chosen a harvest and passed on the torch to the younger generation.

The winners were chosen from among 50 participating schools, with the largest number coming from the University of the Philippines in Diliman (UP-Diliman).

The categories this year were oil/acrylic, watercolor, sculpture, digital fine arts and calendar art. Categories may change on an annual basis.

In the oil/acrylic category, grand prize winner Dale Erispe from the Technological University of the Philippines (TUP) portrayed in Thorns and Pigments the agony and ecstasy of a young woman—a young battered wife?—resting on the ground as blood spills from her back. Roses bloom on her sides and Erispe’s super flat nod to Japanese artist and Louis Vuitton designer Takashi Murakami is evident via the pop art splatters of paint, a fruit fly and a single fluttering bee which poses the eternal recurrence of Death: Where is thy sting?

Second-placer Ronante Maratas of Feati University created a neoexpressionist portrait of ordered chaos in his entry on self-reflexivity and the unknowable other in Protect Me From What I Want, Protect Me From What I Need. Jover Soriano of TUP won third place with a neoexpressionist close-up of a face that stares rebelliously into space as if to say Ayoko Na Kayong Pakinggan, also the oil/acrylic’s title. Meanwhile, honorable mention awards went to Kim Hamilton Sulit of Far Eastern University (FEU) for Through Memories & Images, John Marin of TUP for The Conjugal Effect of Black Tongue and Fatal Words Against a White Soul and a Beautiful Heart, and Morgan Martinito of the University of the East (EU) for Imaginarium.

In the watercolor category, top-prize winner Paul Christopher Adriano of Feati dealt with a nation’s postcolonial identity amid the tug of global powers in his entry Dangal. For second place, Nolan Jose Alonzo of UP-Diliman depicted the ethereality of the temporal world in Be on Guard. Third prize went to Taya-taya sa Mandaraya, a study on the mores we transmit unsuspectingly to children, by Lance Kirby Yaneza of Feati.

Three honorable mentions in the watercolor category went to Mark Lester Espina of EARIST for Ang Buhay Parang Piko, Tatalon-talon, Tila Nagbibiro; Vincent Navarro of UP-Baguio for Walang Katapusang Paghihintay; and Catherine Salazar of TUP for The Hidden Talent.

Sculpture’s grand winner Idiot Box by Jonathan Esguerra of Rizal Technological University (RTU) sets a miniscule child against the all-powerful stare of an adult with the head of a television set, and problematizes media’s power as Big Brother during this stage of late capitalism. Kris Abrigo of UP-Diliman placed second for his enigma of the body caught between the inanimate and the animate. Also from UP-Diliman, third-placer Francis Bejar presented in Hibla ng Kapalaran the social forces of slavery, mastery and how both feed on another. Receiving honorable mentions in sculpture are Jonathan Esguerra of RTU for Beauty Inside, Wiljoseph Magsino of Tarlac State University for Eggs and Cranes, and Rick Donald Manzon of De La Salle University-Dasmariñas for Bayanijuan.

All or Nothing by Erlinda Katricia Inciong of Adventist University of the Philippines won first place in the digital fine arts category with her printed file that showed that passion can be achieved by the absence of extraneous engagements. Second place went to Charmaine de Leon of the University of Santo Tomas (UST) for Thought Thread, an image of the network of utterances between mind, mouth, hand and thought. Third-place winner Hyacinth Lyn Laoke of UP-Diliman created The Paradox of an Orthodox which juxtaposed a single x-ray image to reveal what looks like the inner sanctum of a church with the original image at dead center. Honorable mention awardees were Pamela Jaira Flores of UST for Fiery Law, Shena Cuna of TUP for Anxa Ak Hito, and Juan Miguel Bermudez of UST for The Brahma Bull.

Last, six students won in the calendar art category in oil or acrylic. Vincent Navarro of UP-Baguio with Reuniting Our Legends and Folklore for Our New Generation was a discussion on Philippine myths and legends that reaffirm a traditional identity. Ang Mga Mata ni Pina by Jeminic Real of the University of Northern Philippines-Ilocos represented his inspired imagery of the legend of the pineapple.

TUP’s John Emmanuel Salazar elicited joy by showing the pleasures of reading in The Magical Book. Emil Aldrine Alarcon of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines portrayed the divine feminine as Diwata: Gabay ng Kalikasan. Roseller F. Huerto Jr.’s Rehearsal showed boys at play, ready for manhood. And John Emerson S. Tejones was the sixth winner in the calendar art category with Ilaw ng Tahanan, an idyll on domestic life, love and education.

Cash prizes, medals and art supplies were awarded to the winning student artists as part of Pilipinas Shell’s advocacy of youth development in the field of art. Schools of the grand-prize winners were also acknowledged and given a special grant in support of faculty development.  On its 44th year, the Nsac wishes to thank its institutional partners: Air21, SM Supermalls, Canson Artist Papers, Winsor & Newton, Lefranc & Bourgeois, National Book Store, Ayala Museum, Shell V-Power, Shellane, Shell Helix, Genluna Gallery, Anthill Fabric Gallery, Gallery Orange and Museo Iloilo.