Works submitted to the group show at Salcedo Private View 

“Spotlighting The Sugilanon” 

curated by Gina Jocson

It could be the Negritos were the earliest known inhabitants of the Philippines.

What if we were never settled by any other race?

Kansilay / 30 x 20 x 12 inches/ Epoxy

The Ati Haciendera / 40 x 36 inches / Acrylic on Canvas/ 2022

The Silaynon Revolutionaries / 40 x 36 inches / Acrylic on Canvas/ 2022

 

Historical Distortion

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Diving into Legaspi's Historical Distortion

by Kaye O'Yek 

In Historical Distortion, Silaynon artist Raymond Legaspi interweaves chronicled national events, art masters' famous works, and paintings he is particularly fond of into his abstract creations. His deep appreciation for Filipino history fuels this exploration, infusing his works with the spirit of the past as he carefully selects significant events that have shaped the nation's identity. In turn, he confronts and remakes them through his unique lens. The artist reimagines these historical narratives, infusing them with a fresh and contemporary perspective. By translating the figurative into vibrant abstractions, he blurs the lines between reality and imagination, challenging viewers to reconsider their perceptions. By distorting traditional depictions of historical figures and events, the artist invites viewers to engage in a dialogue that transcends the boundaries of time and space.

 

Historical distortion is an academically documented phenomenon associated with an infamous dictatorial family name. In a CNN interview in the wake of the latest Philippine national elections, notable historian Ambeth Ocampo explained that revisionism is "not the correct term, simply because when we revise, we reflect—we correct. Revision is meant to go towards truth—to do something correctly. So if you do otherwise, it's actually distortion or denialism, so it should rightfully be called historical distortion."

 

Legaspi's artistic journey is a vibrant exploration of the figurative, translated into captivating abstractions that pulsate with energy. Each canvas is a testament to the artist's uninhibited expression, employing a potent interplay of lines, scumbles, and active applications of paint. He creates a tapestry of tints, tones and textures that evoke a sense of dynamism and movement that may also be found in his past works featuring abundantly luscious figures set In fantastic backgrounds, whether on land or underwater. With his full-time artistic practice beginning in 2006, it seems the artist rarely touches on political themes. For this collection of recent works, however, whose conceptualization has percolated since the pandemic, he unleashes his unique, unfettered abstract expressions, utilizing the artist's way to confront and control the narratives entangled in distortionism head on.

 

September 21, 1972 is inspired by a significant turning point in Philippine history that delves into the depths of emotion and uncertainty. The painting encapsulates the tumultuous atmosphere and the artist's interpretation of the events surrounding the declaration of Martial Law, offering a visceral and thought-provoking exploration through his expressive linework and emotive use of color, specifically those associated with TV sign offs. The artist captures the turmoil and unease that marked this pivotal event, inviting viewers to reflect on its enduring impact. The Bloody Golden Years in frantic yellow, white, and black with spatters of red and cyan echoes the force of pouncing bellows perched upon a spreading pool of crimson. Authorities might have been quick to cover up the brutality, but with the help of media documentation and contemporary art, it will not be forgotten. Imelda's Picasso explores the complex relationship between art and power. Drawing inspiration from a famously sought-after masterpiece that magically transformed into a humble poster, the artist unleashes his own instinctual interpretation, revealing the intertwining of influence, artistry, and historical distortion. 

 

Legaspi's reverence for art masters and national artists is evident throughout this exhibition. With each piece, he pays homage to their contributions while infusing his own personal touch. The abstract interpretations serve as a visual conversation between him and his predecessors, reflecting the artist's deep appreciation for their influence and his desire to push the boundaries of artistic expression. Direct, instinctual, and highly vigorous, his current technique involves the spontaneous application of vigorous lines and the chance effects of layering.

 

Abstract art is art that does not attempt to represent an accurate depiction of a visual reality but instead uses shapes, colors, forms, and gestural marks to achieve its effect. Depicting forms not found in the natural world, they emphasize freedom in technique, execution, and emotional expression. In his other works in the collection, Legaspi masterfully transforms recognizable subjects into lively abstractions.

 

A bold reinterpretation of Juan Luna's monumental masterpiece in Juan Luna’s Spoliarium brings Legaspi's energetic yet conscientious application of paint as the artist delves into the emotional depths of Luna's iconic triumph, bringing a fresh and visceral perspective to the monumental masterpiece. Its emotional intensity and rawness contrast with Juan Luna's La Bulaqueña, which he treats with the airiness associated with the baro't saya's piña weaves.

 

With his signature expressive style, the artist distorts the traditional representation of the La Bulaqueña, breathing new life into the subject, inviting viewers to engage with the rich cultural heritage she represents, and even adding a fashion accessory that might shield the sitter from too much summer sun. A Family Portrait by Simon Flores captures the dynamics of familial bonds and the interconnectedness of generations through shared experiences and stories. Light and warm pigments dance across the canvas, revealing the artist's instinctual interpretation of family and togetherness.

 

Amorsolo's Harvest pulsates with a sense of abundance and vitality as the artist translates the idyllic landscapes and bountiful harvests of Amorsolo's iconic scenes into a captivating abstract composition of Filipino rural life, infusing it with his own imaginative touch. In Amorsolo's Little Girl by the Shade, he captures the ethereal beauty and grace of Amorsolo's subject while adding his own interpretive twist in merry reds and greens. Bathers by Victor Edades is dominated by the warm glow of flesh under a relentless sun, while in Collaboration by Edades, Galo, Ocampo and Botong Francisco, Legaspi carefully makes an effort to approximate the hues in the maestros' interactive painting, a prime example of a visual symphony of form and individual techniques embraced by the spirit of collaboration. Lapu Lapu by Botong Francisco is his perception of the portrait of the legendary Filipino hero through an abstract lens, focusing on the courage and strength of Lapu-Lapu  while maintaining reverence for Carlos "Botong Francisco's ability to depict the nation's historical figures with grandeur and adoration. He features Feeding Chickens by Anita Magsaysay Ho, paying homage to Ho's celebration of Filipino culture with fondness and faithfulness to the grace of the women portrayed with a sense of rural simplicity and everyday life.

 

Legaspi also draws inspiration from his favorite Ang Kiukok pieces in Clown by Ang Kiukok and Ang Kiukok Crucifixion. The artist explores the enigmatic and emotive qualities of Ang Kiukok's art through rich reds and crimsons, one featuring harlequinesque shapes floating on canvas and the other gushing out a torrent of emotions, merging anguish and spirituality into a captivating composition that challenges traditional representations. In The Boxer Codex, The Five Peso Independence Day, and the two-faced Laguna Copperplate in night and day, he reinterprets cultural iconography his way: blurring the details while immersing. himself in the feel of these objects and eventually releasing cacophonic glee that may be likened to the discordant ring of nonmusical metallic objects striking together yet melding visually into a glorious and uncanny whole.

 

Historical Distortion is a generous invitation to view and embrace the transmuting power of abstraction while offering an openness that audiences can fill in with their own experiences. Legaspi's artworks are brimming with life, each canvas beating with the artist's creative energy and the spirit of the masters who have gone before him. With every stroke, the artist captures the essence of the subject matter, inviting viewers to engage with the emotions and narratives embedded within. One simply has to immerse themselves in the vivid and energetic world he has created with bold lines, intricate scumbles, and active applications of pigment on canvas. Through his instinctual approach, undeniably honed by decades of artistic discipline, Legaspi creates a visual language that is both expressive and thought-provoking, imbuing points of history with a fresh and contemporary feel. The artist bears full agency only of himself, not the past, and he uses this creative power to the fullest.

 

 

Juan Luna's Spoliarium / 240 cm x 152.5 cm / Acrylic on canvas / 2023

 

 

September 21 of 1972 / 122 x 152.5 cm / Acrylic on canvas / 2023

 

Bloody Golden Years / 122 x 152.5 cm / Acrylic on canvas / 2023

 

Imelda's Picasso / 117.5 x 80 cm / Acrylic on canvas / 2023

 

The Boxer Codex / 60.9 x 60.9 cm / Acrylic on canvas / 2023 

 

 

The Five Peso Independence Day /130 cm x 91.5cm / Acrylic on canvas / 2023

 

 

Juan Luna's La Bulaqueña / 130 x 91.5 cm / Acrylic on canvas / 2023 

 

 

 

(front)

 

Night and Day (inspired by the Laguna Copperplate of the year 900 AD) 

114 L x 30 W x 15 H cm / Acrylic on epoxy / 2023

 

  (back) 

 

Lapu Lapu (After Botong Francisco) /130 cm x 91.5cm / Acrylic on canvas / 2023 

 

 

Amorsolo's Harvest / 91.5 x 91.5 cm / Acrylic on canvas / 2023

 

 

Clown (After Ang Kiukok)/ 60.9 x 60.9 cm / Acrylic on canvas / 2023

 

 

Ang Kiu Kok's Cruxifiction /130 cm x 91.5cm / Acrylic on canvas / 2023

 

 

Bathers (After Edades) / 60.9 x 60.9 cm / Acrylic on canvas / 2023

 

 

A family portrait (after Simon Flores) / 60.9 x 60.9 cm / Acrylic on canvas / 2023

 

  

Collaboration by Edades, Galo, Ocampo and Botong Francisco / 60.9 x 60.9 cm / Acrylic on canvas / 2023

 

 

 

Amorsolo's Little girl by the shade / 130 cm x 91.5 cm / Acrylic on canvas / 2023 

 Maranao Girl /  24 x 30 inches / acrylic on canvas / 2020

"Re-Cycle" /  Junk bicycle, old clothes. / 2016

"Walking Clown" / Epoxy and Porcelain / 2019

 

"Tinagong Dagat" (sunset) / 152.4 x 182. 88 cm / Acrylic on Canvas / 2020 

"Tinagong Dagat" (Starry Night) / 152.4 x 182. 88 cm / Acrylic on Canvas / 2020 

 

2020

"Love in the age of Corona Virus" /  24 in. x 24 in. / Acrylic on canvas /  2020

"WFH" /  24 in. x 24 in. / Acrylic on canvas /  2020

"Social Distancing" /  24 in. x 24 in. / Acrylic on canvas /  2020

 

"The Abduction of Fun" /  24 in. x 24 in. / Acrylic on canvas /  2018

"Na Tokhang si Gummy Boy" /  36 in. x 36 in. / Acrylic on canvas /  2018

"Spoliarium" /  84 in. x 120 in. / Acrylic on canvas /  2019

 

"Everybody Dies" / 81 in. x 62 in. / Acrylic on Canvas and wood / 2018 

"The Last Laugh" / 60 in. x 96 in. / Acrylic on Canvas / 2020

"It's not the real thing" / 60 in. x 72 in. / Acrylic on Canvas /  2018

"The Greatest Show on Earth" / 18 in. x 24 in. / Acrylic on Canvas /  2020

 

2017 Qube Exhibition : Dreamscape

Blue Mountains/ 18x24 in. / acrylic on canvas / 2017

Couch/ 36x60 in. / acrylic on canvas / 2016

From Turqouise to Indigo/ 24x 14 in. / acrylic on canvas / 2017

Ina/ 36x60 in. / acrylic on canvas / 2017

Isabel/ 36x60 in. / acrylic on canvas / 2017

Maskarra/ 36x36 in. / acrylic on canvas / 2017

No Pillow/ 36x36 in. / acrylic on canvas / 2017

Starry Night/ 18x24 in. / acrylic on canvas / 2017

The Black Book/ 36x36 in. / acrylic on canvas / 2017

And Then She Saw Herself/  36x60 in. / acrylic on canvas / 2016

Dreamscape by Adjani Arumpac

Dreamscape is a collection of paintings conceived during siesta, a Spanish colonial legacy intrinsic in the Philippine culture. “When I was in the corporate world, a siesta was considered The Great Escape. One has to hide somewhere to get that luxurious nap.” Raymond Legaspi graduated from the University of Santo Tomas with a diploma in Advertising. For the next two decades, he worked in the advertising industry-- from being a production artist in 1987 to Executive creative director in 2006. After going through the circuit of seven agencies and garnering numerous creative rewards, he decided to leave it all and go back to Silay, Negros Occidental to pursue full-time painting. Legaspi’s background contextualizes his idyllic representations in oil on canvas, a narrative of the return to rural he has explicitly put in all of his artist statements. As such, his body of work belies the calm it shows. It is a text that must be read through an active gaze employed by an artist resolute in turning away from the Center. 

Literally, this series are portraits of sleeping women. Those who are not naked wear the ubiquitous daster, a lightweight clothing usually worn inside the home. But the artist skillfully infuses another disparate element in the domesticity and comfort conveyed by females in various states of repose. He drowns the silence of sleep on the canvas with the noise of a proliferation of hues and patterns—on the daster and on the bedsheets. This noise is central to the artist’s depiction of utopia that defines his creative statement—an exploration of a fictive space of solace from and within he paints his ouvres. The operative word is fiction, and as with the rest of his narrative, it needs unpacking so as to be able to accurately locate the core of Legaspi’s practice. 

The space where he chose to retire to and create is Silay, his hometown, a small city dubbed as the cultural center of the so-called Sugar Bowl of the Philippines. Initially a military district of the Spanish colonial government, a rigid encomienda system of farming sugar cane, among others, was established at the turn of the century that brought economic wealth to the province. Silay held one of the largest settlement of the landed affluent families, hence the concentration of arts and culture cultivation in the city. When the sugar industry saw its downfall, and along with it the economic slump of the province, the underprivileged were first to experience backlash—resulting in poverty and hunger; and unrest that led to massacres of and revolutions led by peasants. This is the rich history that indirectly informs and texturizes Legaspi’s notions of the of rural—markedly defined by portrayals of heavy-bodiedness that pertain to both wealth/health, and gluttony. 

In the artist’s context, the rural is that which is outside the Metropolis that is Imperial Manila, where he flourished and flailed as a corporate creative and eventually escaped. But, in retrospect, the rural is a misnomer as Silay is decidedly metropolitan. This is where fantasy/fiction as personal identification sets in. The sociopolitical dynamics that defines his utopia—where a system in place has thrived on wages not commensurate to the labor/talent exerted/applied—are of the same blueprint as the Center he left. As such, his paintings are representations of a difference compounded into one surface of paradox—detailed and deconstructed by the patterns that saturate his canvases. 

What Legaspi highlights are not portraits of corpulent female bodies—the intimations to intimacy, the private and plump, the relaxed and rural. These are but negatives imprinted on a contemporary metanarrative he knows all too well. Dreamscape, as the title implies, invites the viewer to look at these portraits as landscapes that reveal the horror vacui of a culture and system, where affluence is prime and hence, more is deemed as more. The clashing patterns, multicolored florals and foliage, kitschy and pastiche, intricately painted in bright hues, pervading—all point to a lack that defines and redefines the artist’s valuation of what is rest and unrest, as informed by his forays in the Center. Escape is not a geographical destination nor an end but a repetition of creative process—to create, again and again; to recreate aspirations and hopes fast consumed and disposable; to maintain a semblance of the dream—the only acceptable.