User:MApontillas

www.artmajeur.com/marcialpontillas

ARTIST BACKGROUND == THE CROWDED DRAWER ==

Marcial Pontillas is a Multi-award-winning artist Born in Bicol at the Jose Panganiban Camarines Norte, from the Far Eastern University. He won a consecutive awards, Grand Prize 1995 in 28th Shell National Student Art Competition, 1996 TSPI Tulay Sa Pag-unlad Inc. Development Corporation Painting Contest, 1997 CBCP/UST 5th National Eucharistic Congress Painting Competition, 1997 PLDT-DPC Telephone Directory Cover 11th Visual Art National Competition, he got the Best Entry in AAP (1998 Art Association of the Philippines National Painting Competition) and one of the 28 finalist of 1998 Winsor & Newton World Wide Millennium Painting Competition, and selected as one 50 finalists in Philip Morris Group of Companies Philippine Art Award year 1998, 1999 and 2003, he also (5) Juror’s choice in the 1st GSIS Painting Competition Professional Category, And now he teaches college classes in Advertising Art and Painting at the Far Eastern University. Pontillas work’s has started conceptualize his idea by on creating of an pontifical concept, CROWDED, has a Pontillas trademark, a bravura handling of pigment: thick, rich impastos slathered with an almost childlike joy, This configuration of crowd scenes and lush impastos constitute the highly spirited art of Pontillas. at this point and time we can see and feel in our hearts that many things had happened in our environment. We can see progress in the industrial development such as, there is the skyway, the uprising skyscrapers and boom of condos, the flyover, the LRT and MRT, the Malls, Food house, and Department stores. Wherein the Filipinos are benefactors of this progress and success. its tells how busy life and the truck is, from different walks of life you must seen crowds, rich and poor people are victim of monstrous traffic jam in metro manila. No matter how hard and the longer it tries for our government leaders to solve this problem, it becomes attached to what purports to be a symbols of progress.

AWARDS RECEIVED

17 December 2004 "1st Honorable Mention & 17th Finalist" Sculpture & painting Category 75th AAP Art Association of the Philippines GSIS Museum, Finance Center, Pasay City Metro Manila Sculptur Title: Tationg Lolang Deboto" Painting: "Dagsaan sa Pantalan (Lucena Fort)" Plaster & Metal 21/2 x 2 x 1 Ft. Oil on Canvas (30" x 40")

21 May 2004 "5 JURORS CHOICE- (Professional Category) 1st Annual GSIS Painting Competition 2004 GSIS Museum, Finance Center, Pasay City Metro Manila Painting Title: "Pop CultuFre, Trapik" Oil on Canvas (3 x 4Ft.)

16 October 2003 "50 FINALIST" Philip Morris Group of Companies Philippine Art Award '2003 Metropolitan Museum of Manila Painting Title: "Yes or No, Dead or Alive, Heaven or Earth, Good or Bad, Black or White" Oil on Canvas (184.5 x 199 cm.)

03 January 2000 "2nd HONORABLE MENTION" Ancestral Home Landscape Painting Contest Picache Group of Companies Quezon City Painting Title: "Makulay no Lumang Tahanan" Oil on Canvas (24"x29")

19 August 1999 "50 FINALIST" Philip Morris Group of Companies Philippine Art Award '99 Metropolitan Museum of Manila Painting Title: "City Crowd" Oil on Canvas (5 x 6 Ft.)

21 December 1998 "28 FINALIST" WINSOR & NEWTON Word Wide Painting Competition Museo ng Maynila Roxas Blvd. Painting Title: "01 -01 -2000 Philippines" Oil on Canvas (31 " x 47")

28 September 1998 "50 FINALIST" Philip Morris Group of Companies Philippine Art Award '98 Glorietta Ayala Makati City Painting Title: "Maynila Ngayon It" Oil on Canvas (200 x 200cm.)

20 July 1998 "BEST ENTRY" AAP National Centennial Painting Competition GSIS Museum, Finance Center, Pasay City Metro Manila GOLD MEDAL Awardee in the Regional Level Painting Title: "Panahon ng Kalayaan" ("Independence day") Oil on Canvas (4 x 4 Ft.)

11 February 1997 "GRAND PRIZE" PLDT-DPC Telephone Directory Cover 11 th Visual Art National Competition Gallery III Ayala Museum Makati Theme: 'Ang Diwa ng Pillpino" Painting Title: "Sama-sama so Pagdlwang ng Kalayaan" Oil on Canvas (29" x 29")

29 January 1997 "GRAND PRIZE" CBCP/UST 5th National Eucharistic Congress Painting Competition Beato Angelico Gallery UST Espana Manila, Theme: "Eucharistic and Freedom" Painting Title: "I'm Looking at You!" Oil on Canvas (30" x 36")

20 December 1996 "GRAND PRIZE" TSPI-Tulay so Pag-unlad Inc. Development Corporation Painting Contest TSPI Development Corp. Guadalupe Noevo, Makati City Theme: "Out of Poverty, Out of Bandage" Painting Title: "Tulong-tulong sa Pag-asenso" (poverty) Oil on Canvas (30"x36")

06 September 1996 "10 FINALIST Metrobank Foundation Inc. Young Painters Annual National Painting Competition Metrobank Plaza Main Office Buendia Makati City Painting Title: "Maynila Ngayon I" Oil on Canvas (36" x 48")

13 February 1996 "FIRST PLACE (FEU/lARFA Pre-Screening PLDT-DPC Telephone Directory Cover, 1 Oth Visual National Art Competition, Gallery III Ayala Museum Makati City Theme: "Philippine National Hero" Artwork Title: "At Pumintig No Ang Paghihimagsikw Oil on Canvas (29"x29")

27 November 1996 "SECOND PLACE" Star City on-the-Spot Painting Contest at Philcite Building. CCP Complex Roxas Blvd. Pasay City Theme: "When the Night Falls in the Star Cityw Oil on Canvas (18"x24")

13 October 1995 "GRAND PRIZE" 28th Shell National Student Art Competition, Shell Phil. Group of Companies at Manila Golf Club Forbes Park Makall City Artwork Title: "Sabra No!" ("Its over") Oil on Canvas (36" x 36")

18 October 1995 "GRAND PRIZE" Receive a Certificate of Excellency in the 28th Shell Nat'l. Student Art Competition at SM Megamall Bldg. A Second Floor Mandaluyong Makati City

PRESS COVERAGE

WORKS ON VIEW AT PODIUM

From the Philippine Daily Inquirer of Monday September 27, 2004 Multi-awarded artist Marcial Pontllas is holding his first one-man exhibition, "Genre of Expressions: MASA," at the Galerie Joaquin at The Podium.*

Pontillas twice won the grand prize at the PLDT-Directories Phils. Corp.'s Visual Art national painting competition. He also won the grand prizes at the CBCP/UST National Eucharistic Painting Competition, the TSPI-Tulay sa Pag-unlad Painting Contest and the 28th Shell National Art Competition. He has also been a consistent finalist in the Philip Morris, Windsor and Newton and AAP art contests. Recently, he was one of the 5 Jurors Choice awardees at the GSIS painting competition.

Pontillas' works call to mind the works of noted expressionists, Danny Dalena and Onib Olmedo. Like Dalena's, Pontillas' works are clearly metaphors for the human condition.
 * Call: 02 723 9253 or 02 634 7954 GALERIE JOAQUIN The Podium

BUCOLIC ART, URBAN ANGST OF MARCIAL PONTILLAS Philippine Daily Inquirer Expressionist force In contrast, Marcial Pontillas, who has won a string of prizes over the last few years, has a markedly expressionistic style that serves him well in his first show, “Genre of Expressions: Masa.” A native of Camarines Norte, Pontillas has chosen the claustrophobic and chaotic city as [his] subject. With his view of teeming, crowded streets, Pontillas situates his subject from the vantage point of flyovers, overpasses and festive occasions like a religious gathering or a mall offering bargain finds. Pontillas, like Bajados, certainly knows how to conceive his imagery – perhaps because of his solid and unwavering brushwork. The places in his canvases are, of course, familiar and all too real: from Quiapo Church during the feast of the Nazarine to a traffic jam atop the overpass during rush hour. There are also scenes of overcrowded city streets during santacruzan, a mammoth gathering of holiday revelers in “Ekskursyon” or the usual crowd of bargain-hunters in “Wagwagan.” Pontillas has appropriated some images from the early work of social realists Jeho Bitancor and Emmanuel Garibay, who have powerfully depicted urban squalor and misery in their oeuvre. Pontillas is closer in spirit to Ferdie Montemayor, though he zeroes in on people instead of structures. Dalena also comes to mind, particularly in the Pontillas’ rendering of figures and color, though the mood in Pontillas is more jubilant, bereft of seething commentary. Ultimately, Pontillas will have to be on his own with his choking view of humanity - and with a city as helplessly congested as this metropolis, he will have more canvasses to paint for his next shows.

Author: GINO DORMIENDO E-mail the author at: gdormiendo@yahoo.com

Tuesday, November 9, 2004 1:15 AM, ABS CBNNEWS and the TODAY Newspaper Crowded drawer: The Art of Marcial Pontillas GALLERY HOPPING By CID REYES

There is an unmistakable sense of placeness in the works of Marcial Pontillas—an image sustained through the years of his youth. The crowd scene has become his trademark, an image of self-proclamation, as well as a blistening indictment of the city of his affection. With the hideous sprawl of an almost derelict metropolis, Metro Manila is a nightmare. In particular, the bustling downtown scene is the quintessential Pontillas subject—its dehumanizing atmosphere and toxic pollution that destroy not only bodies but also our souls. It is true that Pontillas paints these images with an obsessiveness verging on vengeance, but doing so has become salutary for the artist. The gesture is by turns cathartic and aesthetic. Not only does he express his intense observation of the city, but in the process he has also reaped a string of awards. If you happen to have kept in your bodega the 1997-98 telephone directory, you will find on its cover the grand prize-winning work of Pontillas. It is entitled Sama-sama sa Pagdiwang ng Kalayaan (Together in Celebration of Freedom). As such it is one of the artist’s rare excursions into a festive depiction of the Filipinos’ predilection for crowding. After all, the subject of the painting is the so-called “Fiesta Revolution,” though this celebration seems to be held away from Edsa. Its mélange of images is a tumult of details: flower-wreathed carabaos, a brass band, a town church festooned with colorful bunting and, biggest puzzle of all: a bayanihan scene of a nipa hut being transported on the massive shoulders of men. Besides its multitude of bodies, the work disports a Pontillas trademark: a bravura handling of pigment: thick, rich impastos slathered with an almost childlike joy. This configuration of crowd scenes and lush impastos constitute the highly spirited art of Pontillas. When and how did the artist start to paint? Pontillas is the youngest of nine children. His father designed and constructed houses. He studied at the Camarines Norte State College in Bicol, where his talent for art showed when he won in the school’s poster competition on themes such as “Prevent Malaria” and “Nutrition.” This early exposure to art convinced him that he had found his vocation in life. Pontillas set his heart on enrolling at the University of Santo Tomas (UST) but, as fate would have it, enrollment had already closed. The neighboring school, Far Eastern University (FEU), became his subsequent choice. In Lourd de Veyra’s profile on Pontillas, he writes: “The subject matter or visual theme for which the artist is now associated with—the human and vehicular congestion in Metro Manila—first came to Pontillas in the daily home-to-school grind. Confronted by this teeming mass of humanity, and choked by the toxic pollution in the air, emitted by thousands of jeepneys, buses and other vehicles, Pontillas decided to capture this quotidian reality on his canvas. This unique image, in fact, was a major factor in what can be considered the artist’s streak.” Indeed, what followed was an avalanche of awards. He claimed the grand prize in the 28th Shell National Students’ Art Competition (1995) for a piece entitled Sobra Na (Enough is Enough)—a depiction of a downtown Manila cityscape. In 1997 Pontillas romped away with another grand prize in an art competition sponsored by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines. And thence to Pontillas’s grand prize in the 1997 PLDT-DPC competition on the theme of Ang Diwa ng Pilipino (The Filipino Spirit).His recent exhibition at the Galerie Joaquin the Podium is, in more ways than one, a recapitulation of his visual theme, submitting it to more specific places rather than a generic sea of humanity. The buildup of bodies is just as thick on the beach or inside a movie house, in a moriones fiesta or santacruzan, in Quiapo Church or at the MRT station. In a couple of works, Pontillas paints a portrait of a kutsero (rigdriver) and a tsuper (jeepney or taxi driver), whose visages are made interesting by certain facial expressions, awake or asleep. What I enjoyed most was the painting of the ukay-ukay, which also goes by that onomatopoeic word, wagwagan. Indeed the sound of hundreds of hand-me-down clothes, being waved and dusted off, is music to our ears. Ukay-ukay is the latest wonder of the Filipino entrepreneurial spirit and to fashion pizzazz. It is also the latest of Pontillas’s crowd-drawer scenes. Interestingly, by the simple expedient of changing location, Pontillas imbues his works with national values. Thus a painting of a crowd-filled church carries with it an implicit spirituality of our people. The same applies to his fiesta scenes where our extreme conviviality comes into the fore. Certainly, these works bear the architectural landscape of the times: the ubiquitous flyovers and overpasses, the familiar landmarks of commerce and religion. Pontillas even saw fit to do a plaster sculpture of an overpass stairway, symbol of our people’s torturous ascent to progress and our precipitous decline into economic despondency. But hey! No matter. Artists in other populous cities—New York, Tokyo, London—have equally created their own allegorical realism, harsh and bleak and doom-laden. Remember T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland: “A crowd flowed under London Bridge. I had not known death had undone so may. ” But our walking, wounded masa, with their pluck and humor, will not be undone. So long as we have our karaokes to sing our woes away. Now, there’sanother subject for Marcial Pontillas.

Author: CID REYES/TODAY

Monday, April 24, 2006 THE MANILA TIMES (Life and Times) Pinoy artists banner Hong Kong, Paris exhibits Our very own Filipino artists are headlining two art exhibitions this month, one in Hong Kong and another one in Paris, France.

Philipp Badon will open Language of the Universe today, 7 p.m., at V-13 Vodka Bar and Gallery, ground floor, 13 Old Bailey Street, Soho, Central Hong Kong.

As a visual creator, Badon explores his God-given talent to eliminate the language and cultural barriers in the universe through art. He is confident that his abstract expansionistic pieces of fauvistic color schemes, as well as his pieces depicting pecan-faced women will speak to the international community in cosmopolitan Hong Kong.

In Paris, the Hotel Gavarni has opened the Filipino Art Exhibit on April 21, featuring some of the country’s finest contemporary artists: Marcial Pontillas, Sandra Fabie-Gfeller, Jomike Tejido, Carlo Saavedra, Cathy Lasam, Jim Orencio, Edgar Yap and sculptor Pablo Capati.

The event will be a continuing exhibit that will feature various Filipino painters, sculptors and photographers every three months. The artworks on display will be for sale to continually showcase Philippine artistry and talent.

Hotel Gavarni is at No. 5, Rue Gavarni, 75116 Paris, France. For inquiries on participation and sponsorship, e-mail rpa@rpa.com.ph

ABS-CBN Interactive Celebrity (as of 11:15 PM) Pinoy artists banner Hong Kong, Paris exhibits

Our very own Filipino artists are headlining two art exhibitions this month, one in Hong Kong and another one in Paris, France.

Philipp Badon will open Language of the Universe Monday, 7 p.m., at V-13 Vodka Bar and Gallery, ground floor, 13 Old Bailey Street, Soho, Central Hong Kong.

As a visual creator, Badon explores his God-given talent to eliminate the language and cultural barriers in the universe through art. He is confident that his abstract expansionistic pieces of fauvistic color schemes, as well as his pieces depicting pecan-faced women will speak to the international community in cosmopolitan Hong Kong.

In Paris, the Hotel Gavarni has opened the Filipino Art Exhibit on April 21, featuring some of the country’s finest contemporary artists: Marcial Pontillas, Sandra Fabie-Gfeller, Jomike Tejido, Carlo Saavedra, Cathy Lasam, Jim Orencio, Edgar Yap and sculptor Pablo Capati.

The event will be a continuing exhibit that will feature various Filipino painters, sculptors and photographers every three months. The artworks on display will be for sale to continually showcase Philippine artistry and talent.

Hotel Gavarni is at No. 5, Rue Gavarni, 75116 Paris, France. For inquiries on participation and sponsorship, e-mail rpa@rpa.com.ph.

GSIS Heritage Painting Awards 2004

The First GSIS Painting Competition with the theme, "Heritage: Legacy of Filipino Achievement", was held last May 2004 at the GSIS Museum of Art to mark the National Heritage Month, International Museum Day and the 67th Anniversary of the Government Service Insurance System. Participated in by two hundred eighty (280) artists all over the country, the competition was divided into professional and student categories. In the professional division, named best entries were "Interaction" by Toti Cerda, "Pamana ng Liping Kayumanggi"  by Rex Tatlonghari, and "Pamana"  by Dan Lerma. In the student division, top prizes went to "I Love Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" by Julius Acbang, "Makukulay na Kayamanan Tanaw sa Sampayan ng mga Pangarap" by Dexter Fernandez, Pista ng Kulay ng Kayamanan" by Edgardo Pantoni and Nang Imulat Ating mga Mata, Kapwa Tagumpay ang aking Nakikita" by Arwyn Paras. The Juror's Choice (honorable mentions) were Marina Lyn Cruz, Noel Ferraris, Florentino Impas, Marcial Pontillas and Eufemio Rasco in the professional division; and Luzviminda Botana, Jigger Cruz, Renato Habulan, Ezra Reverente and Anthony Sibug in the student division. The winners in the professional division received a cash prize P120,000 (inclusive of tax) each while those in the student division received P100,000 (inclusive of tax) each. The juror's choice received P10,000 (inclusive of tax) each.