WELCOME
Renato R. Habulan
"All my mentees are conscious of their role as artists. As a story teller, they have to go beyond the beauty and aesthetics that separate them from the bandwagon effect. The lens that they used are wide and multi-focused and showed the context, the historical milieu and more importantly the emotion of the subject."
Celebrating Filipino-American National History
Photo Gallery
“Haplit” is about the violence inflicted on the people using a religious analogy. “Supling” here refers to us, children of God.
This painting was part of Magnificat exhibit at Ayala museum in September 8,1985, where Cory Aquino opened the exhibit and announced her candidacy. Morning of that day the Agrava commission cleared General Ver as man behind the assassination of Ninoy Aquino.
Bulang Alon, 2004
Drawing from Life D.2.03
The juxtaposition is damning, as the feudal system brought
here by the Spanish, has lashed much suffering at farmers and land tillers, the ordinary men and women that Jesus beseeched his followers to love and serve.
Drawing from Life D.1.03
As we spend resources in outward manifestations of piety, the least of brethren, as represented by Christ, are treated with indignity.
Daloy P.1.02
It’s also interesting to see how the familial, in the context of the exhibition, also defines identity. How powerful is art as a bond between the senior Habulan and his son and son-in- law? Quoted from Habulan Exhibit "Ama, Anak"
Eskinita Art Gallery, 2018
Daloy P .2.02
In imbibing the knowledge from Ato Habulan, how do Guerrero and Geladuga address anxiety of influence in forging their own artist paths? Habulan asserts that identity, once chosen, becomes destiny.
Papelismo: Pen & Ink Drawings
Santelmo Series D.49.16
For Habulan, a staunch Social Realist, identity is the confrontation between the local and the global, between the pre-colonial and the post-colonial, between the East and the West.
Boceto # D.38.14 (A,B) These two layers of identity nest onto each other in the single body (which can also be extended to society, the body politic) of a host, which has religious connotations as a symbol of Jesus Christ.
Boceto # D.44.15 Kupot Series
Boceto 39.15 A
While the outside is affirmatively Catholic (religion, after all, was the cross that accompanied the sword in the subjugation of our country), the inside remains faithfully pre-Hispanic.
Boceto D.38.15 B
In his monochromatic works of boceto (pen and ink drawings), we see the bulul ensconced on torsos wearing characteristic liturgical vestments.
INTERVIEW
Why paint en Plein Air?
Sit down with Mang Ato in one of his mentoring classes, and immediately you will feel good about being an artist doing your own craft, with conviction to achieve your own identity. In this video, he encouraged plein air painting to feel the romanticism of art, and enjoy it as a family activity...