“NACIONalismo,” a fitting title to Francis Nacion’s year-opener, is not only a play on the artist’s family name. It is also a fitting title that encapsulates the idea of the artist for this exhibition: a call to reexamine what it is to be Filipino.
A collection of 26 paintings inspired by 19th-century clothing, “NACIONalismo” hearkens to the approximate birth of the Republic of the Philippines. It also points to the time when oil painting, as a discipline, became an accepted medium for the visual arts—a sign of the growing consciousness of a global world among the middle and upper class, and the growing self-awareness of the Filipinos distinct from the Spanish colonizers, but asserting equality.
In this collection of works, a new style emerges from Nacion: the sepia paintings complemented by the ornately carved frames from Paete. Nostalgia is infused in the simulacra of the sepia photo, a visual allusion to a past that is treasured, but whose time is past; accessible only to those who exert an effort to locate these keepsakes handed through generations. These are complemented by the signature colorful style of Nacion, whose intricacy is appreciated in the elaborate layers of profuse patterning in both sgraffito and line drawings, which yield floral, foliar and linear ornamentations reminiscent of the heavy embroidery of barong Tagalog and its kin in other developed cultures of our country whose ornamentation is heavy on embroidery, beadwork, or dyeing. Through these two series, we are reminded of the value our culture puts into the synthesis of global influences and technologies—Spanish-style clothing, Chinese embroidery, Filipino skill, and taste — to create what is truly ours.
“In this time when most Filipinos look to Europe for inspiration, putting a premium on European and American technologies and taste, we have to dig deeper for what is truly Filipino. This is the only way that we can meet the global on our terms. This is the way we can find our place in the world,” says Nacion. Looking at his works, we are reminded that who we are is not in blind acceptance of the foreign or its complete rejection, but somewhere in between. We negotiate influences but adapt to what suits our culture, our values, and our needs first.
Though at the onset “NACIONalismo” provides pause to a complicated world through a nostalgic reminder of a simpler past, the artist draws us to examine what it means to be a Filipino, asserting his identity in the crux of a globalized world. We are reminded that we have always flourished being at the crossroads if we only remember who we are at our core.
“NACIONalismo” runs until today at Art Lounge Manila, The Podium, Ortigas Center in Mandaluyong.
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