.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Ronald Ventura has established himself as a tour de force within contemporary Asian art over the last five years. His distinctive artworks take the form of carefully crafted tableaux, comprising enigmatic visual metaphors, recurring figural characters, and appropriated symbols from contemporary culture. Instead of relying on individual narratives, Ventura instead composes a synthesis of disparate elements, displaying his signature photorealist technique skillfully melded with pop iconography.
Astroland was a significant inclusion within Ventura’s well-received New York solo exhibition, A Thousand Islands in 2011. Hailing from the Pacific island archipelago of the Philippines, Ventura is preoccupied with the idea of islands – individual, floating landforms – which are terrestrially separate, yet ethnographically connected to form an agglomerate country. This principle is also the inspiration behind Ventura's aesthetic, as the artist successfully binds different elements together into a unified and spectacular visual whole.
Within Astroland, Ventura depicts a male figure clad in protective gear, as though he could be a firefighter, an astronaut or a bomb disposal operative – masculine archetypes within Ventura’s works, usually in combination with a gas mask which fully conceals the protagonist’s identity; as though the artist prefers to focus instead on psychological process over physical form. Here, the multi-faceted Star of David insignia, traditionally used as a talisman of personal protection, acts as a tool of personal effacement. By contrast, the pictorial background of verdant tropical island terrain recreates a Rousseau-like state of untrammelled nature, while the Disney castle and other cartoon vignettes bring to bear a sense of childhood innocence and personal authenticity.
Astroland was a significant inclusion within Ventura’s well-received New York solo exhibition, A Thousand Islands in 2011. Hailing from the Pacific island archipelago of the Philippines, Ventura is preoccupied with the idea of islands – individual, floating landforms – which are terrestrially separate, yet ethnographically connected to form an agglomerate country. This principle is also the inspiration behind Ventura's aesthetic, as the artist successfully binds different elements together into a unified and spectacular visual whole.
Within Astroland, Ventura depicts a male figure clad in protective gear, as though he could be a firefighter, an astronaut or a bomb disposal operative – masculine archetypes within Ventura’s works, usually in combination with a gas mask which fully conceals the protagonist’s identity; as though the artist prefers to focus instead on psychological process over physical form. Here, the multi-faceted Star of David insignia, traditionally used as a talisman of personal protection, acts as a tool of personal effacement. By contrast, the pictorial background of verdant tropical island terrain recreates a Rousseau-like state of untrammelled nature, while the Disney castle and other cartoon vignettes bring to bear a sense of childhood innocence and personal authenticity.