by Alice G. Guillermo

The Cordillera artist never run out of creative juices as recent and upcoming exhibits at the Hiraya Gallery prove. Out of this fertile zone have emerged some of the most original and innovative young artists inspired by the beauty of their highlands, its indigenous Igorot cultural traditions, and given a boost since the last 15 years by the Baguio Arts Guild.

The recent show at the Hiraya presented the works of six artists from the region: John Frank Sabado, Jordan Mang-osan, Roger "Rishab" Tibon, Jojo Elmeda, Roland Bay-an and Ged Alangui. Of the six, Sabado, who signs his name as Juan Frank Sabado in this show, is the most well-known, having had quite a number of individual shows and significant participation in group shows, as in his two large works at the lobby of the Baguio Convention Center at the last Baguio International Art Festival in 1999, as well as exposure in various exhibits abroad.

Mang-osan is also making a mark with his paintings and engraving done in the unusual and painstaking technique of using a magnifying glass held against the sun to create lines and incisions.

The other four are relatively new artists who carry on the tradition of Cordillera artistic creativity. Another Cordillera artist, Leonard Aguinaldo, will dazzle us soon, also at the Hiraya, with his colorful mandala paintings on rubber sheet. All these artists have been influenced and given support and inspiration by the Baguio Arts Guild, of which we have received some recent news which we shall later refer to, and have circulated among the older artists such as Santiago Bose, Ben Cabrera, Kidlat Tahimik, possessing strong contending personalities.

Sabado is a most versatile artist, bristling with concepts, techniques and forms; at the Baguio art festivals he has done performance art and installations, although he is particularly outstanding in his mandala paintings which must be, without fear of exaggeration, among the best of contemporary mandala artistic interpretations today, both inside and outside the Philippines. Possibly because he is true son of the Cordilleras, he is able to achieve a perfect fusion of technical excellence in the precisionist art of the mandala and mystical power that mesmerizes the viewer as a true mandala should, initiating an experience of exploring inner spaces and perspectives. While having the form of a two-dimensional work, his paintings go beyond the two-dimensionality of the surface by the most subtle of means, such as the use of strings in rows of the severest exactitude, without a flaw, for just the slightest imperfection would produce dissonance and distraction. His Absorption in mixed media is endlessly intriguing in its concentric circles that create a telescopic effect in the management of space, near, farther and infinitely distant. Its dominant orange hue has a blazing though tempered effect, enough to encompass the viewer’s field of vision and to bring it into a circular, swirling movement, through layers screened by the fine and taut strings, or undergoing textural and tonal transformations. The variations of the abstract shapes and their intervallic spaces I slow centrifugal movement, as well as the small textural motifs, arise from a rich intuitive sense that proves the essential role of intuition and instinct in art-making. Nothing here is extraneous: the strings themselves allude to the Cordillera handweaving traditions, at the same time that they play on temporal and spatial concepts. The vetical format of the work with the circle in the middle section links it up with the Asian hanging scroll or a handmade textile laid on a loom.

Mang-osan has always used indigenous designs and motifs and he has now perfected his technique of drawing with magnified glass-directed light in extremely sharp focus on the painting surface. While he had hitherto used paper, he now chooses wood, thus rendering the process, which very few artists would dare take up, even more difficult. By now, he has also fully developed his sense of folk/indigenous design, with the elements in relationship to each other, and the whole sparkling with a lively folk humor, as in Day and Night of the Lizard.

Bay-an’s Cordillera is of a more somber aspect. On a dense neutral ground of earth tones, he embeds a number of cultural artifacts, such as shell necklace, ornaments of plaited rattan, incised pendants of mother-of-pearl, and a raised dark mound with a bulul in its center. The strong central orientation of the work links it up with the mandala as meditation device. Hovering above is the face of an indigenous persona, intense and protective of indigenous culture. Bay-an’s works catalog the symbols and artifacts of ritual and daily use that reflects the cosmology and beliefs system of the Cordillera groups. All these are frames by a dark brown/black border which has the effect of enclosing the figures into a self-sufficient world presented as distinct from the viewer’s world. a relationship thus ensues between the viewer and the symbolic work as between the collector and such a work. It is possible that a respectful distance may exist between the two, with the viewer/collector acknowledging the integrity of the world enclosed within a frame. But on the other hand, the urban collector may mentally appropriate this visual catalog and symbolic world and range it with his other prize possessions on his living room wall.

Elmeda’s mixed-media paintings also show much promise. They are mainly figures of people in Cordillera society, such as a mat weaver, a bakya vendor and a farmer. These are in a presentative and formal pose, at the center of the painting. One is struck by his use of various actual materials to supplement the image; a real ecru banig which fills the lower section interacts with the colorful painted banig spread down from the lap of the woman banig-maker. Actual palay and clay are also used in relation to the other figures. The artist indulges himself in the decorative by the painterly textural fields in flecks of varied tones that surround the figures. It is to be noted that the women and men are not individual portraits—they lack distinct individualizing traits essential to portraiture—but are rather static generic images (the 19th-century tipos del pais were more arresting in appearance.). There are, indeed, traces of Bencab’s influence in the frame within a frame, a device given a second wind by this younger artist, as well as certain poses of the traditionally costumed female figure which bears echoes of Sabel-turned-whirling-geisha.

Alangui does Cordiller landscapes in his own individual style, but instead of full landscapes (of which there is one or two). There are fragments of landscapes, each containing a motifs, such as a tree, a sunset, a mountaintop, or clouds. While there is a freshness of execution and a strong sense of color, there seems to be a tendency to rely on stereotypical symbols. It seems that his style needs unwinding because it could rigidify into repetitive formula.

Tibon is another artist with s highly individual style; his figures, however, have little to do with the Cordilleras. They are elegant female figures dancing in cosmic space. But what little relation the paintings have with the highlands is found in the ribbons of space and cloud that entwine and spiral around the dancing nymphs. The Cordillera highlands probably do lend a sense of space and breadth that can invigorate an artist’s work.