Bountiful Blessings

In his 7^th one-man exhibit, titled Bountiful Blessings, artist Ryan Rubio pauses to reflect on the everyday graces that fill our lives yet don’t always recognize. On view at the gallery are mostly small oil on paper works and one large-scale oil piece on canvas.

To Rubio, it is a glimpse into his everyday life and his constant pursuit of finding new techniques and strokes that he can apply in his continually evolving body of work. He is not a believer of sticking to just one style or method of doing things. What keeps him going is in knowing that he can portray things differently every time he paints or makes a sculpture. The key is in taking time to paint and in immersing himself in the creative process until he is pleased with what he sees. The results are haunting, ghostly figures emerging from the mist of nearly monochromatic drips of paint, with only slight splashes of color, suggesting very little movement, as if freezing time for self-introspection.

“Recurring Prayer” depicts one’s dependence on prayer and as thanksgiving for graces received. Rubio only hints at a figure and then lets his expressionist instincts take over. It sets the contemplative tone of the rest of the pieces. “Summer at the Seashore” recalls his fondness for his hometown, and how it has vastly changed over the years. In a sense, he still wants to recapture what it once was, clean and unadulterated. Rubio admits he only realized how valuable it was when he had to move away to the city, recognizing what was missing. “Intimacy,” meanwhile, is something he shares with his partner, and is likewise a blessing from the great provider. “Waiting for My Honey” is dedicated to her, as work has recently forced them to live apart. The 6’ x 6’ centerpiece, “Not Good for Man to be Alone,” is a reference to the beginnings of Adam and Eve.

Rubio is so sure of his faith that he even sees something positive and gracious in mortality, as he demonstrates in “A Gift After a Death.” To him, death is not to be feared if you’re treading the right path, and must be appreciated within the natural course and meaning of life.

He knows he has always wanted to paint, and it is with such conviction that he gets to enjoy what he does. There is no self-doubt or regret, adds Rubio, on every brushstroke.  He does not care how much time he needs to get it right, whether it takes one hour or one year. Experimenting with the process is part of the joy he derives from the craft.

- Marie Ann Fajardo

West Gallery is at the Mary Santos ArtCade, #48 West Avenue, Quezon City. For inquiries, call 411-0336 or 411-9221, or “like” West Gallery on Facebook to get the latest updates on its exhibits: https://www.facebook.com/WestGallery.

Paracaleno

A Paracaleño in Search of Gold

For someone informed of the range of craftsmanship in the Philippines, the word “Paracale” evokes images of fine artistry in gold jewelry.  The town’s name is the local term for canal diggers since the place was filled with canals when the Spaniards first visited.  Recorded history notes that gold was being mined in the town of Paracale, Camarines Norte as early as the mid-1500s.  But hand-beaten gold accessories can be dated earlier than what the history generated by our colonizers tells us.  

Ryan Rubio, born in this same town in 1982, grew up surrounded by industries and material culture born out of mining and jewelry making.  Although he points out that his family was more involved in the mining and processing of metal than in the production of gold accessories.  His grandfather was a mining engineer and his father was a welder.  It was from his father that he was first exposed to the tools of sculpture making, an art form he started to explore only two years ago. 

His memories from childhood also recall a view of the mountains surrounding the town and a few meters from their home, the waters of Pulang Daga (“daga” in Bicolano means soil) that was their playground.  He has not been home for a while until his recent visits last year and this year again, in May.  It was then that he was confronted by the dire condition of Paracale and the future of its people.  The mountain which he once thought as a constant feature of his hometown’s landscape is now almost flat and the waters of Pulang Daga has now turned to mud, both due to rampant small- and large-scale mining.  Rubio laments the irony of Paracale – its land produces the precious yellow metal but the town and its people remain poor.  

Since his last visits, Rubio began working on a series of works.  The urge was almost spontaneous that he needed to retreat in his studio, completely detached from the outside world.  His friends almost thought he was missing.  Then a few months later, Rubio has completed Paracaleño, a suite of sculptures, mixed media works, and paintings that pays homage to his beloved hometown.  

His subjects are the people and the landscape that makes Paracale distinct.  People are embodied in wood, stone, clay and metal.  Images of the terrain are painted in oil pigment but rendered in almost water-like washes.  The local folks – Paracaleños – appear weathered yet animated in recycled wood, clay and metal parts.  Rubio introduces us to local terms and the social context that are unique to small-scale mining in Paracale.  Canal diggers or the magkakabod are roles taken on by young boys or even women. But more often women take on the task of the mag-aakaw.  They process the gold by sifting through mud to separate the gold using wooden pans or what is called the pabirik.

Another local mining practice is the use of a makeshift raft or balsa to carry improvised machineries and tools to dig for gold and other metals underwater.  The maglilidip dives into muddy waters to dig the soil only to be provided with air through a tube attached to an air pump. This practice has led to the destruction of corals and caused the waters of Pulang Daga to go murky.  Fishing has also ceased to be a source of food for the town.

Rubio, however, points out it was the “absence” of the mountain in the familiar landscape that made him realize that the destruction of the environment is rampant.  It was literally just in their backyard.  He notes that within a year, four mining companies were given licenses to set up their own operations and this literally ate up the mountain.  His oil on paper and canvas paintings  are impressionistic but are far from the bright compositions characteristic of this style.  His pigments are earthy and dark, the sky dim and overcast.  He sought to capture the loss of life and growth in nature.

Rubio also points out how the Paracaleño’s today have chosen to just focus on mining and have neglected other sources of livelihood.  Food crops are no longer being planted even in backyards and so the townsfolk have to resort to buying food from nearby towns.  Copra, once a produce in Paracale, has been abandoned.  Although Rubio seems to be hopeful as he channels the “guardians” or tagapag-alaga in a set of round canvas paintings mounted in coconut shells.  Applied almost in drip-like strokes, his compositions recall the wax drippings formed in the folk healing practice of pagtatawas.  Does this suggest an attempt to heal the land?  

This is perhaps asking too much of art and of the artist.  But Rubio’s works are in consonance with a global concern for the environment and leads us to assess the risks of progress.  As a stakeholder and a Paracaleño, he makes us rethink the benefits and effects of mining, an issue quite timely with the recent call for a sense of responsibility to key players in the industry. 

MVTHerrera

September 2012

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Silence

Form and Satisfaction

Existence

Existence is the most profound concept that underlies the work of Ryan Rubio. Yet it is not only existence alone but the very nature and reason for it that is the persistent thought that drives the artist in him to paint layers upon layers of thick paint to produce a final visible surface founded on tactile memories of the distant past: his youth.

When asked what his message is to his audience, he simply remarked: Life is precious. Not many people realize the true worth of life’s experiences, the real reason why people are around them. He continued: Value the people around you when they are alive. In death, they would not even know what praises and glories you sing in their honor. They would not hear you. Treasure them while they are there with you.

When asked why his figures reminisce of alien forms, he declared: What I see in people are not their physical appearances but what I feel they are, what I think they are made of, what I sense they want to be. Their physical forms become a blur to me, and what I see in them is their character, their personality, their values, their worth. I paint what I feel in my guts what I think they really are.

Rubio’s concept of after life is another life: A person continues what he needs to do, for the purpose he was created, even after death. He said: Death is just a transition for you to be able to continue your mission in life. And that Life is the one spoken of in the greater sense.

A remarkable recent work of Rubio is Huling Pyesta: Pebrero Dos ( Last Festival: February 2 ), a huge canvas  filled with fleeting images of a parade enjoyed by his father who passed away when the artist was only in grade school. Too early, he said, for one so inspiring, so nurturing, so supportive of his dreams and visions, to go. But nevertheless, anchoring on his own beliefs about Life and Death, he went and the Artist accepted it.

Yet all these seem not to matter to Rubio. When viewed in the broader horizon, deep within the context of what the Artist really believes in, Life and Death fall in but one straight continuum. Life cannot exist without Death, or Death without Life.