Startist in Spotlight
By KARLA VIZCARRA
(Note: Not sure what got into me while on the Bart train one afternoon in March … but after more than a year, I decided to buzz on IM the author of this piece – formerly, Philippine News staff writer — whom I met while visiting the PN office in Makati in 2006. She immediately IM’d me back, sending her reply from her sister’s laptop in Vallejo. Apparently, she had just arrived from Manila the week earlier, and is currently visiting New York from which she filed this story. – Editor)
NEW YORK, NY — Given the Pinoy’s schizophrenic nature (steely and adaptable at the same time) the great Filipino success story has become almost natural, like pork adobo for dinner. And lately, kababayan pride has been swelling even more — for Charice, Arnel, and the Pacman’s kamao — but Pinoy fame in singing and boxing is hardly new. Hit the right note, bring down the opponent—- audience requirements in these fields are pretty obvious.
The more cerebral world of art and poetry though, with its consistently vague and archaic formulas, is slightly different. So when Filipinos are carving, penning and marking names for themselves in an art scene as visually static as New York, then it’s probably a big deal.
Ernest Concepcion, 31 years old. Stanley Ruiz, 34. Paolo Javier, 34. All born in the Philippines, these Filipinos came to the U.S. at one point or another, with no precise gameplan—-except the romantic notion of knowing they wanted to do art.
Today, Concepcion is known for filling up elaborate landscapes with the violence of battle, using markers and a packed imagination. He is included in the ‘Younger than Jesus International’ catalogue and is the current cover feature of ArtVoices magazine.
Ruiz is a designer who creates furniture and accessories that combine industrial design and artisan techniques, and has had works exhibited and recognized in Germany, Finland and France and sold in in the U.S, Paris and Australia.
Javier, a writer and poet, has a devout literary following, four books of poetry—-one of which had received a book-of-the-year award from San Francisco’s Small Press Traffic in 2005—-and his own small printing press called 2nd Ave Poetry.
What probably makes their stories stand out as most compelling is the fact that they unfold in a place as dense, diverse and kinetic as New York.
It wasn’t easy.
Concepcion’s first works in the U.S. were exorcised from episodes of extreme boredom and helplessness. “I was living with my sister in Jersey, and for two years I couldn’t find a job, and didn’t have any money,” he says. That led to the Line Wars, almost a hundred detailed drawings of opponents in absurd and bloody conflict, which would become his most famous series to date.
Ruiz, who has four upcoming shows in N.Y., Texas, L.A. and Seattle, continues to think how “there are so many talented people out there, and I’m just a dot.” Like most artists, he’d gone through his fair share of crises: lack of resources, connections, funding, time and, in a city as expensive as theirs, money.
Javier, who’s been in the U.S the longest (his family immigrated when he was 12), said there were tons of sacrifice, heartbreaks and mistakes involved. But like his two comrades, he has remained resolute, which he credits to his earlier experience of immigration and dislocation.
Although it doesn’t define their works, the three artists sometimes find themselves drawing from distinct Filipino memories. Ruiz is fond of using fallen branches and twigs, which apart from “being nice to look at,” triggers incidents of childhood folly back in Manila. Javier throws in Filipino references in his poems here and there, lending to the trippy-dreamy rhythm of his words. And just recently, in a larger-than-life chalk mural done with collaborator, Mike Estrabrook, at the Pulse Art Fair, Concepcion paid homage to Philippine culture by drawing fire-breathing carabaos, mananaggals, famous deceased leaders, and particular curse words no one else would understand anyway.
Nobody promised it would get easier—-and New York is a tougher place than most—- but these guys are working hard, and are clearly reaping the rewards. Even more importantly, these emerging voices in the contemporary N.Y. art, design and literary scene are having fun. As very appropriately put by Javier, “I can always count on my Pinoy sense of humor to save the day.”
One final trait the Pinoy needs, evidently, to make it anywhere.
Ernest Concepcion will be having his 2nd solo show at the NY Gallery (154 Stanton St. N.Y.) from June 4- 27. For more of his works visithttp://www.culturehall.com/portfolio.html?id=ernest_concepcion
Stanley Ruiz will have works exhibited at the Dwell on Design – Kitchen Ecology show in LA from June 26 – 28. Log on to http://www.stanleyruiz.com/ for more details.
Paolo Javier has just concluded the poetry comic, “ the original brown boy” with Concepcion. To see his works, log on to:
http://www.2ndavepoetry.com/2ndAve_2/ecpj00v2.html
http://chax.org/eoagh/issue3/issuethree/concepcionjavier.html
http://blogs.myspace.com/paolojavier.
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