Art meets anthropology

Factor 1: For the past 45 years, the Chicago-based John D. and Catherine T. Mac- Arthur Foundation has been giving out grants to meritorious individuals and organizations for a variety of causes that fall within its stated mission of supporting “creative people and effective institutions committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world.” In the US, the individual MacArthur fellowships are known as the “genius grants.”

Factor 2: Chicago also happens to be the home of the 120-year-old Field Museum of Natural History, a venerable institution housing over 20 million specimens from all around the world—including an impressive collection of 10,000 Philippine artifacts, many gathered from American expeditions to the Philippines in the early 1900s, very few of which ever go on display.

Factor 3: Dr. Almira Astudillo Gilles — a Filipino-American social scientist and prizewinning writer who now lives in the Chicago area — put the MacArthur Foundation, the Field Museum, and the Philippines together in her head and hit upon the idea of seeking a grant from the foundation to fund a project that would help showcase the museum’s priceless Philippine collections before a larger global audience.

That initiative soon materialized in the form of the Art & Anthropology Project, conceived by Almi Gilles, sponsored by the two institutions, and supported in the Philippines by the Erehwon Arts Foundation. It involves bringing together five Filipino and five Filipino-American artists to work collaboratively on two huge paintings (mural-size at 7 by 28 feet, but technically not murals or wall paintings as they are free standing, on canvas) — one in the Philippines and one in Chicago —over three months from mid-August to early November.

The Field Museum in Chicago

I had a chance to mingle with these artists last week, twice — the first time, on a weekend run to Baguio, during which they visited National Artist BenCab at his museum, and then at the Quezon City domicile of the Erehwon Arts Foundation (which, aside from paintings, also hosts an orchestra and a dance studio). It was good to see Almi again, whom I’d first met in Michigan about 30 years ago when she was doing her graduate work in East Lansing and I (and her brother Jun) in Ann Arbor. I introduced Almi to my wife Beng, the vice-chair and a trustee of the Erehwon Arts Foundation, and along with Erehwon heads Raffy Benitez and Boysie Villavicencio, Almi and Beng helped crystallize the Philippine phase of the project.

The 10 chosen artists went through a rigorous and juried application process on both sides of the Pacific. No one — not even established and well-known artists —got a free pass. This opened the door to young, vibrant talents — most of them under 40 — representing a range of artistic styles and persuasions, from the realist to the abstract. While the Fil-Am artists come from around the Midwest, the Filipinos range in their origins from Baguio and Manila to Cebu and Cotabato.

This August, the five Fil-Am artists arrived in Manila to work with their homegrown counterparts at the Erehwon Center; this November, the five Pinoys will fly to Chicago to do the same. The finished paintings will be on exhibit in their respective venues, and will feature artifacts the artists have chosen from the Field collections, recontextualized in the present. This way, the project’s as much a celebration of our continuing ties as global Filipinos — arguably one of our richest cultural resources — as it is of our pre-Hispanic wealth.

The artists involved are among the best of their generation. Herewith, excerpts from their profiles:

Leonardo Aguinaldo was born in Baguio City in 1967, and currently lives in La Trinidad, Benguet. Aguinaldo’s style is highly illustrational and graphic, derived from his experiences as a printmaker. He utilizes the rubbercut and acrylic paint to achieve highly dense and detailed designs derived from his traditional Cordillera background.

Jennifer Buckler was born in Dover, Ohio in 1986. She received her BA in Art from The Ohio State University in 2009 and her MA in Art Therapy Counseling from Marylhurst University near Portland, Oregon in 2011. In 2013, Buckler joined a Chicago-based Filipino artists’ collective known as the Escolta St. Snatchers Social Club, where she has explored her Filipino roots more deeply.

Elisa Racelis Boughner was born in the United States and raised in Mexico, and studied art in America and Europe. Her work reflects the influence of each of these cultures, and of a range of painting styles from Impressionist and German Expressionist to Cubist. The result is a unique and highly personal style that brings extraordinary vibrance to often ordinary subjects.

Cesar Conde is a contemporary painter who employs Old World techniques on modern materials to paint realistic portraits. He is a Filipino-American artist based in Chicago who studied with master painters in Italy and France. He counts Caravaggio, Rembrandt, and Goya among his influences.

Florentino Impas Jr. was born in 1970 in Danao City, Cebu, ands graduated from the Surigao del Norte School of Arts & Trade. A consistent competition finalist and winner and a member of the Portrait Society of America, Jun was a former president of Cebu Artists Inc. (CAI) as well as a former president of the Portrait Artists Society of the Philippines.

Joel Javier earned a BFA in Painting and Drawing at Murray State University in 1999, then pursued a career in studio art which led to a career in art education, receiving an MA in Art Education in 2011 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Joel is currently the Education Manager at Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art in Chicago. 

Emmanuel Garibay was born in 1962 in Kidapawan, Cotabato. With degrees in sociology, fine arts, and divinity, the many-talented Manny has mounted at least 19 solo exhibitions, and is well known for his expressionist figurative style as for the content of many of his works, which often express a keen social and political consciousness.

Trisha Oralie Martin is an interdisciplinary book and paper artist currently living, working, and teaching in Chicago. Trisha envisions her art as a catalyst that can convey important social issues across diverse communities. Inspired by her cultural heritage, her highly patterned works are pulped and printed with native Filipino designs.

Jason Moss was born in 1976 in Manila. He finished a BFA, Major in Advertising, at the University of Santo Tomas in 1997. An award-winning book illustrator, animator, and filmmaker, Jason is also a painter who has mounted 28 solo exhibitions since 1993. Jason’s work blends grotesquerie — his manifest suspicion that our world is beset by demons of one kind or other, some of them within the self. 

Othoniel Neri was born in 1985 in Manila, and began drawing at a very young age. In 2003 he studied Fine Arts by mail through the International Correspondence School, and received several awards in international and local competitions. Being a figurative and portrait artist, Otho paints with a very sharp eye and a flair for detail, employing a palette of explosive colors.

National Artist BenCab hosts the group at his museum in Baguio.

The project has been a rich learning experience for the artists on both sides, so far, in terms of exchanging viewpoints, experiences, and techniques. Beng and I look forward to seeing what they’ll do in Chicago in November for the project’s US phase — whatever its content, surely a triumph of cultural kinship across the miles and the millennia.

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Email me at penmanila@yahoo.com and check out my blog at www.penmanila.ph.