Jeho bitancor biography of donald

The Philippine archipelago is home to the jasmine flower, Manila hemp, carabao, Visayan spotted deer, ferns, orchids, and a landscape of mountains and valleys. Ocean weaves between the islands. In a globalized world, it is commonplace to see natural land masses: rocks, fauna, and nonhuman elements as static, meant for production or consumption. However, the Filipino American artists featured here bind their understandings of the Philippines and the United States by vivifying their artwork, whether it be through the materials, connections with community, or archives. They trouble Western modes of artmaking, building bridges with their work while questioning what that bridge is made of. 

“Filipinos in the US make up the second largest Asian population group … [yet their] art remains invisible,” claims the website of NExSE (northeast US by southeast Asia), a Filipino-American artist collective whose intention is to bridge the gaps among Filipino diaspora artists in the northeast US. Collectives like this are one in myriad ways Filipino-American artists are connecting, creating artistic platforms, and engaging with their history and identity.

Mic Diño Boekelmann, uses the Tagalog kababayan to describe NExSE’s ethos: a spirit of collective responsibility and kinship toward peoples of one’s country. The role of collective memory outlines the work of Boekelmann and Carlo Ricafort, who lives in San Francisco. Boekelman works with manila envelopes reminiscent of the golden Manila hemp from which they were originally sourced, informed by the memory of her mother describing the drying plants in the Philippines. Boekelmann remembers these materials back to the land of their growth. Even though he is a nonactive member of Epekto, Ricafort paints abstracted bacterial shapes of space and memory. 

“I always try to create my own experience to feed my art,” Julio Jose Austria told Hyperallergic; lately such experiences sprout from his immigration to New York

Jeho Bitancor’s Painted Truths
by Christiane L. de la Paz

October-November 2010 -- Jeho Bitancor is one of the more important and astute contemporary painters in the country today. In the mid-1980s, he emerged with quasi-surreal paintings as his early explorations in art but has since made a mark as a purveyor of social realist paintings. In his breakthrough works, Bitancor imbues his statements, ironies and epigrams in the hope that knowledge and awareness may serve as an impetus for change. His mature works, often of a personal and contemplative nature, have engaged the themes of society, the Filipino diaspora and other nexus of issues, experiences and thoughts. Yet taken together, Bitancor’s works put the viewer’s attention to those aspects of migratory experience that shatter or reinforce the Filipinos attachment to its homeland and its readiness to adapt to a new country. After three decades of achieving a fairly notable position, patronage and approval, Jeho Bitancor continues to improve himself as a painter and works harder for his works to address larger segments of its wider audience. In this November feature, Jeho Bitancor provides an account of his life and painting career, his artistic process and ethics and accompanies the lively discussion with his thoughtful body of works, giving a vivid portrait of himself as both an individual and a painter.

Graduating from the University of the Philippines in 1990, what was your life like during the early phase of your career?

My early phase was characterized by uncertainties. I was trained as a studio artist first, majoring in painting before continuing my studies or second major in visual communications. I was aware then that pursuing a degree in fine arts right after graduation is a tough decision and a sure ticket to starvation unless you have an affluent family to support you.  Having been raised from a family of simple means, I did not have the luxury of indulging

Many people think that collecting art is only for the wealthy, or that bigger always means better. Neither is true.

Over the years, I’ve been fortunate to collect some pretty meaningful pieces, including works by some of the most coveted artists around. So every now and then, someone asks me which artists they should “invest” in.

My answer is always the same: Don’t treat art as an investment. The art market is wildly speculative, subject to price manipulation by unscrupulous galleries and dealers, as well as to fleeting trends. Today’s hot talent can be tomorrow’s whatever-happened-to artist.

So instead of chasing hype, buy art because you love it. Buy it because it moves you, because it adds something to your life, or because you want to support the person who created it. Buy art for the feelings they evoke, the memories they inspire or help to preserve, or even just the way they make your room or workspace better.

And if you think good art is always expensive or massive, think again. Some of the most beautiful and satisfying pieces in my collection are small and you-would-be-surprised-how-much-they-cost affordable. They don’t take up an entire wall or shelf, and they didn’t cost a fortune, but they bring me joy every time I see them.

I should also note that many beginning collectors mistakenly assume that big-name artists are always out of reach. Remember, every great artist started somewhere. There was a time when he or she was young, unknown, and, yes, affordable. The trick is to find him or her before everyone else does. If you chase the artists that are already in high demand, you’ll pay a premium - it’s simple economics. But if you buy what you genuinely love without worrying about trends, and if you support emerging artists, there’s a triple benefit. You’re getting something you want in your life, you’re helping an artist in the early stages of his or her career, and you might just end up with the next Borlongan or Bencab.

To illustra

Friends in Manila are complaining of the heat and with daytime averages of 37 degrees Centigrade I could imagine their discomfort. The more incentives to seek refuge in pleasant surroundings such as an art gallery, and at the Blanc Compound (Shaw Blvd, Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila, Philippines) the casual visitor, while enjoying contemporary Philippine art, may yet end up facing another kind of  (visual) heat.

The latest edition of Babylon Zoo: Inquisition Symphonyby C.J. Tanedo and Tyago Almario opened in Blanc early this week, a year after the artist duo held the 2009 edition at Blanc’s Makati gallery. This time though Tanedo and Almario teamed up with Ramel Villas, whose work, I must admit, I am not acquainted with. But count on the hard-hitting themes of Babylon Zoo, the trio were up and about blazing their guns at issues such as fundamentalist religion, dictatorial politics, racism to tabloid violence.

The routes chosen by these artists were varied with Tanedo’s allegorical tableaus, Almario’s surreal albeit lyrical landscapes and Villas who showcased the range of his painterly skills.

In Tanedo’s “A Strange Day” the medieval-like backgound landscape recalls the paintings of the 15th century Dutch master Jeroen Bosch, a style which recurs in Tanedo’s work.  The landscape is littered with phantasmagorical creatures: a fish adrift in clouds, a village burning, hooded, shady figures, a tableau with portents of doom and decay.

Almario picks up the thread from last year’s Babylon Zoo with his central piece titled “A Song of Atrocity and Shrewdness.” The dismal atmosphere in his last year’s Inquisition Symphony No. 3 work is echoed in “A Song of  Atrocity.”  The lyrical touch i