Michael Montanez and Charmaine Reyes Cristobal
join the Leon Online Exchange Auction 5, with works by Salvador Dali, National Artist Jerry Elizalde Navarro, Mauro Malang Santos, Elmer Borlongan, Jaime Roque, Ben Alano and many others.
Montanez puts on the block his 24-by-36-inch, oil-on-boxed canvas Go with the Flow (2014). A young female, a barefooted violinist, goes with the drift of the music’s rhythm, symbolizing the flow of life. Movements tell the style on the substrate.
Cristobal puts under the hammer the 24-by-36-inch, framed oil-on-canvas Opheliac (2015). It is an interpretation of the head of an agitated woman in gray monotone, her left hand upraised over her long black hair, against a grayscale background with drips of white and occasional red.
Tutored in the rudiments of painting and former assistants of Dante Hipolito, Montanez and Cristobal join their first art auction at Leon Online Exchange Auction 5 on October 21, starting 11 a.m. at León Gallery, ground floor, Corinthian Plaza, 120 Paseo de Roxas, Makati City.
Painted in Tareptipism, the art movement from Baler, Aurora, Montanez and Cristobal make a departure from Hipolito’s well-loved Composite Realism style. Tareptipism was created by Vincent Christopher Gonzales, Sherwin Paul Gonzales and Ian Maigan based on the principles of waves that make the earth silently or violently move.
An art movement that outlines the Filipino art style that the Gonzales brothers named after the old Tagalog word, tareptep, meaning “ripple of water,” Tareptepism aims to convert the ripple of Filipino art into waves in the national and global art scene.
As an “ism or a movement based on a historical perspective, Tareptepism recognizes that visual artists are exposed to multimedia in the Information Age; as such, they are open to many waves of influences.
The Tareptepism Manifesto reads: “Tareptepism is the dynamic art of fusing influences: An art of fluid movement ever changing and evolving through the matrix where the art and the artist dwell. Like water it is ever flexible and boundless.
“The waves, the wind, the streams, formation of leaves, ripples of water are some of the elements that inspired Tareptepism. It is an illusion of motion. Tareptepism captures motion from environment and the dynamism of emotion. Tareptepism puts motion to visual representation of emotion and soul through manipulation of lights, colors, textures and lines.
“Tareptepism, contrary to futurism, is pro-nature. Tareptepism compares to surrealism which is more on dream while Tareptepism is more on hallucination. It compares to realism’s imperfection to Tareptepism’s inconsistency.”
To cope with the increasing demand for his paintings, Hipolito decided to train out-of-school youth with artistic talent who could not afford to go to art school. Those who were serious and displayed aptitude such as Montanez and Cristobal became his assistants.
MONTANEZ. He had no knowledge of colors until a neighbor in Bacoor, Cavite, Carmen Hipolito, Hipolito’s wife, approached him. Montanez relates, “Pinapahanap siya ng marunong o hilig mag-drawing. Matagal ko na kasing kilala si ‘Te Carmen since bata pa ako. Halos tawid-bakod lang ‘yung pagitan ng bahay namin pero di ko kilala si Kuya Dante kasi di ko siya nakita nang matagal dahil nag-abroad siya. Nagkilala kami noong December 1997 nang turuan niya akong maging mantsanero (first coater) ng paintings niya.”
Montanez counts Hipolito as his main influence as an artist.
“Pagtuturo ang isa sa natutunan ko kay Kuya Dante. Marami siyang naturuan at natulungan na kapwa ko na walang kakayanan para makapag-aral. Dahil sa kanya naging posibleng matupad yung pangarap namin maging pintor,” Montanez said of Hipolito’s work ethics.
Aside from painting methods like his use of oil and the criss-cross brush stroke, Montanez imbibed Hipolito’s attention to detail. “Matiyaga si Kuya Dante na magturo. Natutunan ko kung paano maging pulido sa bawat detalye ng mga gusto kong ipinta. Mas madaming details, isip niya, mas maganda lalabas ang obra.”
He also adapted Dante’s work principle — that of upholding passion over profit. “Hindi kailangang maghabol sa pera dahil once gawin ito, masisira ang trabaho.”
Montanez shared unforgettable experiences with Hipolito: “Sinasama niya ako na mag-alok ng paintings sa clients. Nandoon ‘yung tanggihan nila ‘yung painting, baratin. Mahirap makabenta dahil kakasimula pa lang kasi uli ni Kuya Dante. ‘Yung painting ginawa naming panangga sa ulan at araw ‘pag naglalakad at naghahanap sa client.”
Hipolito’s influence on Montanez is evident in the oil-on-canvas Saranggola (2014). A farm scene of happy life during harvest time’s background of peace, prosperity and perfection, a group of boys fly kites. A bamboo groove and a carabao-drawn cart in the style of show this. But the difference lies in Montanez’s rendition of the slim figures in an orange hue compared to the mentor’s yellow. Shadows abound, which are rarely seen in Hipolito’s paintings.
“Magnificent!” raved lawyer/film producer/businessperson Joji Villanueva Alonso upon seeing for the first time Montanez’s commissioned 10-by-five-foot, oil-on-boxed canvas mural En Forma de Historia (“Formed by History” in English, 2016).
Commissioned when she saw Montanez’s Sorbetero post in ARTlead Originals on November 2015, the work turned out to be the solution she had been wanting for the blank wall of her Quantum Post-production office in Kamuning, Quezon City, which she had wanted to fill up for quite some time.
Alonso asked this writer, who is head of ARTlead Originals, to see Montanez in an arranged meeting. After touring him in the office, she threw him the challenge of filling up the space with a mural. Montanez showed her his portfolio in his laptop and she specified a style where the subjects are busy and happy at work. After agreeing at the price, she let him proceed without asking for a layout.
Following the Composite Realism style developed by Hipolito, who passed on in early 2016, he proceeded to work. He had evolved a style that was distinctly his own in urban idiom, veering away from Dante’s rural romanticism. So his subjects are dressed in contemporary clothes and engaged in present-day mores and manners.
Natives of Crisologo Street in Vigan, Ilocos Sur, go about their morning routine in the bygone splendor of its cobbled streets and Spanish-style ancestral houses. An ox-driven cart selling small household wares passed by so they stopped to check what they can purchase. In spread of malls and convenience stores, they continue to use native handicrafts very much like they opt to live along the fabled passageway.
Their past has been formed by their lifestyle that Montanez depicted in contemporary idiom. Using Hipolito’s painting procedure, he photographed family members including six-month pregnant wife Cristobal and four-year-old daughter Milcha wearing everyday clothes and not farmers attire in the manner of his template.
What Montanez comes up with is a style more realistic in contemporary terms, an extraordinary updating that is rural realistic and urban romantic as the same time.
CRISTOBAL. A stunning visual interpretation of the title of Emilie Autumn’s eponymous 2005 album, Opheliac refers to the character Ophelia in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a person who has delved into madness. As described in Act IV, Scene VII of the play, she sings while floating in a river before she drowns.
For her part, Autumn based her painting on British artist Sir John Everett Millais’ Ophelia. Simple and striking, Cristobal executes in grayscale a personal despair in a foreboding sense of loneliness that makes the ambiance bleed blood. She shares: “Na-relate ko sa Tareptepism ito dahil sa waves of colors na para sa akin parang ganun ang tumatakbo sa isipan kapag situation ng isang Opheliac.”
From Las Piñas City, Cristobal worked as a first coater for Hipolito starting 2010. He hired her to develop her natural gift for art. Her preference for oil is clearly a lesson imbibed from Hipolito.
Hipolito turned out to become more than a mentor to Cristobal. “Si Sir Dante parang tatay ko na ang tingin ko sa kanya. Malaki ang pasasalamat ko sa kanya dahil simula ng mapunta ako sa kanila, nagbago ang sitwasyon ko,” she shared.
She then added, “Before kasi medyo hindi maganda ang situation ko. Walang direksyon. Pangarap ko talagang mag-Fine Arts pero imposible kasi walang kakayanan ang parents ko. Hanggang sa pinakilala po ako sa kanya ng kaibigan ko. Unti-unti ko ring naayos yung sarili ko sa tulong nila.”
Their influences and inspirations have resulted to a happy life for Montanez and Cristobal as their original style projected, blessed with two offsprings, Milcha Vanellope and Mint Vincent.