Seeing life through the hands of Mia Herbosa
February 23, 2004 | 12:00am
New York-based Filipino painter Mia Herbosa believes she’s an intuitive person, more than a logical one. She admits to never being good at Math, and she often finds herself at a loss for words when explaining herself. However, when she picks up a paintbrush or she works with clay, her hands are fluent in visualizing what goes on in her mind.
"There’s a sign at my school, the Art Students League of New York, that it is not necessary to know English to learn painting, sculpture or etching," Herbosa declares. "All the instructors there make their ideas known with the flick of a brush, and instantly, you would know what they mean."
But art didn’t come so easy to her. She was actually a late bloomer, only realizing she had a talent for drawing when she was 17.
"I really started late," she says. "When I found out that I had a facility for drawing, I didn’t have any idea how to go about it."
Eventually, her mentors in school and her friends suggested that she go to New York and try her luck there. And, so she did after completing her interdisciplinary course at Ateneo de Manila.
"I worked for a time after college, but I realized that I still wanted to study some more," she explains. "I knew I shouldn’t waste whatever time I still had in my hands before I finally got myself shackled to a more secure full time job."
In 2000, she won the coveted Edward McDowell Travel Grant that gave her time to travel to Europe and have the chance to literally absorb firsthand the works of the masters, as well as offer her the chance to mount a solo show. The grant, much sought after by students at her school, proved to be a stroke of good luck.
"Doors just opened when I got to New York," she reveals. "If you have a good show in New York, they all know you by name. A good show really establishes your integrity as an artist, that you are serious about art."
Herbosa is now in town preparing for her first solo show since 1998. The show Blessed Times, Sacred Days will feature most of the artworks she exhibited for the McDowell Grant show, as well as forays in printmaking and sculpture. The exhibit opens at L’arc-en-Ciel, the Herbosa home in Ayala Alabang, and may be seen by appointment. It then moves on to The Drawing Room in Makati City for a month-long run.
Herbosa’s artworks are like bright bursts of color on canvas. At a glance, her portraits resemble the masters in their attention to detail, and yet their construction betrays their age. When viewed up close, you can see how carefully the images have been assembled into a whole. A sweep of color transforms into the folds of a gown, while the flecks of color on a model’s head reflect the gleam from an overhead light. However, it is not her use of color that make her portraits uncanny, but her ability to imbue a sense of drama in her subjects.
The atelier setup at the Art Students League of New York affected the way she creates her portraits.
"I really paint the feeling of the person, the feeling of the moment into my canvas," she says.
It usually takes her 10 four-hour sessions to complete one of her portraits. Most of her models are classmates and friends, while some are professional models. She also has a number of self-portraits, itself a reflection on the cost of hiring models.
Her most popular portrait to date is her "Self-Portrait at 31 (Homage to Dürer)," her contribution to the group show Homage to the Masters in 2002. She replicates Dürer’s "Self-Portrait," which she saw at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. Instead of Dürer’s face, you see hers, and as a substitute to Dürer’s mass of curly hair, she dons a hood over a medieval coat. This painting has since been acquired for the collection of the Phinma Group offices at Rockwell Center in Makati City.
In planning an idea for an artwork, she often mulls over in her mind how best to realize her work. Apart from painting, she now has at her disposal etching and sculpture. If she sees a work as being more tactile, she sculpts; if she sees it in color, then she picks up her paintbrush; if she sees it as being more linear, then she works with a press to create a print.
She admits that prints do not have a big following in the Philippines. However, she sees it as a viable alternate to painting. "You can express so many things with lines that you cannot do with a brush," she explains.
Herbosa says she still has so much to do in New York that she cannot keep up with invitations for commissions she receives in Manila. Since she’s based in New York, it isn’t possible for her to accept such proposals.
"Besides, I’m not really an illustrator," she declares. "I prefer to work with my own ideas."
Although shipping her works to the Philippines was costly, the expense was well worth it. While she received good reviews in New York, she feels her success wouldn’t be complete if her friends and followers here don’t see her works.
"They hear stories about my show, but it’s really not the same. I’d rather that they see my works for themselves rather than I just tell them about it," she admits. "In New York, success is partly because of marketing, too. However, I get fulfillment in the Philippines when I show my works here. Even if I make a name for myself in New York, it really has so much more meaning only if I make it here as an artist."
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