Father and son traverse through abstraction
Fathers and sons who share the same artistic craft are far from rare: in fact, it is how legacies are forged and sustained. Within the Philippine context, one thinks of the Santoses (Malang and his sons, Steve and Soler), the Olazos (Romulo and his son, Jonathan), and the Blancos (Jose and his many sons and daughters).
The force felt by the son to take up a brush after his father may initially be sparked by a sense of curiosity. Instructions and guidance may be offered. But ultimately, it is about the father setting an example and letting the magic of creation transpire inside a studio, which can only be mesmerizing for a child.
The beauty of such knowledge transference—and transmutation—is evident in the current exhibition “Traverse” by father-and-son tandem Aris and Dale Bagtas.
Organized by Pintô Art Museum for ArtistSpace, and on view until May 30, the show is the first time that the duo has pivoted towards the same conceptual impulse, working within the same abstract mode, and presenting their works as collaborative peers.
The father, known for his whimsical and colorful genre scenes, this time presents overlapping geometric and curvilinear shapes, endowed with a shimmering translucence. The son, on the other hand, displays his organic and seemingly mutating forms, redolent with texture, tactility and presence.
The elder Bagtas father, who has been a practicing artist for three decades, is primarily known as a figurative painter with his dazzling religious images and extensive mural commissions. His style is marked by a uniquely Filipino sensibility, as expressed by works that are festive in atmosphere, pictorially lush and teeming with vernacular forms and images, and harmoniously—and often symmetrically—composed.
An abstractionist through and through, the younger Bagtas is notable for experimenting with the sculptural plasticity of pigment. Departing from non-objective art’s emphasis on the flatness of canvas, his paintings are objective revelations of his rich and fecund universe.
“Traverse,” which is the English translation of the surname Bagtas, is a duet of worlds, as each of the artists demonstrates mastery of their respective forms. Individually, they dove into the lush feeling of their many travels—oftentimes undertaken as a family—and proceeded to express it through their color palettes, their visual translations of spaces, and their compositional sensibilities.
But for a beautiful moment, the worlds of the father and son merge in the titular work, “Traverse Series 1.” Monumental at five by 10 feet and informed by their recent visit to Europe, the collaborative painting juxtaposes the father’s jagged and soaring lines with the son’s stupendous and proliferating spheres.
Such a juxtaposition reveals that even within the tight structure of father-and-son dynamics, influence doesn’t necessarily result in replication. Many factors are involved, but usually the child is compelled to pursue material and stylistic threads away from the father’s, develop and complicate his own visual language, and carve a niche he can call his own.
For the Bagtas duo, there are certain overlaps, such as the profuse use of color, the all-over painterly approach, and hints of formal images emerging from the hectic abstraction. However, the viewer cannot mistake one for the other.
This collaboration between two artists from different generations delivers a valuable insight into how artists are nurtured and developed, how knowledge and skills are transferred and reconstituted, and how continuities within the art community are maintained.
“Traverse” is as much a dialogue as it is an exhibition of exuberance and delight taken in the father-and-son tandem: the senior Bagtas evincing certainty of brushwork and maturity of vision and the junior Bagtas dramatizing an improvisatory approach and a rhapsodic vitality.
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ArtistSpace is located at the ground level of Ayala Museum Annex, Makati Avenue corner De La Rosa Street, Greenbelt Park, Makati City. For details, contact Ms. Jenny Villanueva at +632 8697 1015 or email [email protected].