Artists of dystopia.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Financial Times Ltd.
(From Philippine Daily Inquirer)
Byline: Constantino C. Tejero
A THEME that hasn't ceased to fascinate artists and writers is the Unreal City. The vision is usually of a wasteland populated by semi-humans living a synthetic reality.
A version of this dystopia is Ronaldo Ruiz's "Virtual World," 13 pieces in mixed media (acrylic, computer hardware discards, fiber, sand) and 25 smaller pieces in acrylic, recently displayed in Renaissance Gallery at the Artwalk, 4/L, Bldg. A, SM Megamall, Mandaluyong City.
Eight of the large pieces are composed of central processing units and motherboards mounted on canvases, textured with abaca fiber and sand, then painted with acrylic, in red, green, ochre, gray, black, blue, maroon.
These paintings are really reliefs on canvas. The imagery produced is that of a series of aerial shots of complexes of infrastructures, building compounds, or floor plans of a housing project, factories, depots, military installations, nuclear reactor plants.
This objectifies Ruiz's concern with technology, urban congestion, an artificial world, the synthetic experience. It is a vision of cruel steel and concrete, empty of humanity.
The gold parts of the microchips the artist has left unpainted, maybe to evoke the tiny points of light in the earth's populated areas one sees from an airplane at dusk-a faint sign of life.
By the artworks' titles one can deduce what the artist thinks of this kind of life and world: "Red Alert," "Under Control," "The Border," "The Model," "White House," "The Project," "Rush-Rust."
While these painting reliefs verge between the figurative and the abstract, Ruiz's painting proper is nonrepresentational.
Penetrating vision
He started as a figurative artist, aligning himself with the social realists. His usual subject then was the overseas Filipino workers, having himself worked for two years in Saudi Arabia and thus empathizing with these long-suffering people.
He professes admiration for Bosch, Michelangelo and other Renaissance artists, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Antipas Delotavo, Nune Alvarado, Ang Kiukok.
"I've been discovering my techniques by myself," he says. "I cannot really trace the influences, but I'm sure they're there."
What he is not sure is, when he is going back to figurative painting. "I want to grow in creativity. I'm just playing with my art. I'm constantly seeking innovative techniques, wanting to create art that is always new."
A Fine Arts graduate from University of the East, Ruiz was artist in residence at Artspace in Sydney, Australia. He was twice Jurors' Choice in the Philip Morris Philippine Art Awards.
Ruiz is also into performance art and installation. A young man with visual flair and penetrating vision, he is undoubtedly one of the most important Filipino artists today.
