Artist Feature: Froilan Calayag

I have no words

Guest-starring Nonoy Marcelo's Ikabod

"Chase the Candy" ..One of my favorite Froilan Calayag paintings.. I don't know where it is now.

mmmmm... secretions..

The Artist's Renaissance Influence shows in this painting. I love the presence of water.

"Love Me! Heart Eater"

This is the world I see behind my eyelids.. Where odd creatures exist, and live off each other, and evil is rigid and angular.

Chaos+Color = Fun

I enjoy staring at the transparent, gel-like bear hat on the boy's head.

There's an amphibian called the Surinam Toad that deposits its eggs on the skin of its back. these slowly sink into the skin, creating large holes. In these holes, the eggs hatch and the tadpoles metamorphose inside these holes, emerging as miniature versions of their parents.

Another creature with Surinam Toad features..

Froilan's Prizewinning rendition of Jose Rizal's Terra Cotta Sculpture

Makes me want to run, too..

This is an Allusion to something i forgot. sorry.. But isn't it great? "Everything Turns Impressionism When You're Hungry"

The very first Froilan Calayag work i saw online. That moment, he became my favorite Filipino Contemporary artist. Even more so now having seen more of his work and having learned the experiences and emotions behind the layers of paint.

Bosch brews some Angel's Trumpet Tea with the Chapman Brothers

A take on the old fable

Characters come to life and become not just believable but familiar.

Very Deja-Vu for me.. I had one of those magnetic fishing games when I was smaller. I loved how the little fishes would open their mouths then you'd try to get them to latch onto the magnetic "lure". It's a very close simulation of what you feel when fishing for real fish.

Froilan Calayag is Awesome

Photos from: Artist's own Facebook Page, Gallery Bohemia, Tala Gallery, ClicktheCity, Sensico.edu.pe,Flickr, WhenInManila.com, VinylonVinyl and other very forgiving and generous sources.

Filipino Artists (in no particular order except who I remember first) Part IV

Wow, pare, art.
You know how sometimes, people look at a Picasso and say, "THAT is worth 20 million? I could paint that myself!!" you know what the answer to that is? Yes, you could have painted it, but you didn't, Picasso did. And anything after that would be just a forgery, a tribute, a mimicry, a tired aping of an original. You can see that in mass-produced abstract "art". Some people, when not thinking right, love "parang" works.. PARANG Zalameda fishermen scene.. PARANG Basquiat.. PARANG Pollock..
Sometimes an artist's influences show in his/her work. That's different..and on we go with my blog.

31. Ang Kiukok- Fighting dogs, angry fish, a wild cockfight, a couple doin' it.. I've loved his paintings since I could see colors.. The dead gaze of the eyes, the exaggerated gesticulations and the dynamism and violence were to me as entertaining as any Saturday morning cartoon.

32. Dex Fernandez- The paintings look like the work of Low-attention span cyborgs armed with Caffeine and paintbrushes. Lots of social undertones in his work, poking a sometimes derisive finger at politics, religion, and everything else that makes the world look less like a Dex Fernandez painting. credit: VisualHag

33. Froilan Calayag- One of my favorite contemporary Pinoy artists! I don't own any of Froilan's works but hopefully my wife will get the hints i keep dropping. How do I describe these cool pieces? You know how in your dreams, there are fantastic, unbelievable animals and scary creatures, but your mind somehow registers them as real? I mean, like you're walking in a forest of giant onions, and you see a Cyclops.. you don't scream or run, you just go like "Oh, a cyclops." That's what it's like to live in his paintings i guess.. He has a talent for making the unbelievable denizens of his domain real and believable and even welcoming.. :) I chose this one because it gives a nod and a wink to my childhood hero, Nonoy Marcelo's Ikabod. credit: Artist's own blog

34. Mark Andy Garcia- Birthing form from chaos.. a LOT of chaos.. credit: Philvisualarts

35. Camille de la Rosa- Imagine Giuseppe Arcimboldo running out of ingredients to use.. He goes insane and butchers his models to use their body parts. credit: visionarygallery

36. Jose Joya- known as the Goya of the Philippines because he is also an artist and his name is a Homonym. credit: askart

37. Ramon Orlina- If mammary serves me right, Only a boob would not keep abreast of the national artist's work. If you disagree, well, then tit for tat.  credit: the artist's own blog

38. Juvenal Sanso- We know him for his alien landscape looking paintings that look like Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy album cover.. But he also did human subjects. Credit: Manilaartblogger

39. Francisco Viri- The thing about having a distinct style or signature is that when you get recognition, less creative people want to cash in on your wave and copy your style.. but it ends up looking baduy, or ends up in the Frames section of SM department store. But then again, it's all subject to personal preference. Credit: KulayDiwa

40. Jose Legaspi- An artist i really admire, not because I'm a dark brooding kinda guy (those who know me could tell you I'm a fountain of joy), but because I've seen the brutality that Jojo captures on canvas running amuck in the streets, in our homes, in our schools, on TV and in the government houses. I may not have experienced most of it, thank God, but i know that pain looks like Jojo's St Thelma. My favorite works: Phlegm (the collection of drawings of people jumping off cliffs, stabbing their children, having painful sex, killing their pets, and other arresting imagery.) I also love his almost photorealistic work of people with er, issues? A man stabbing himself IN THE MOUTH.. A couple that looks ready to dismember each other, a man in pain AND in drag... All manifestations of suffering, exploitation, treachery, gender dysmorphia, hatred and loneliness. Macabre and gloomy is too weak.. I prefer the term art critics use: "Really f*cked up"  credit: ManilaArtBlogger

Watch this blog for the next installment!!!