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拍品专文
“What is happening today is that TV is a source of visual input that brings disasters, be they environmental or psychological, to the viewers. In a way, my artwork is like a compressed representation of different dimensions of reality.”
- Ronald Ventura
Every day, scenes from natural disasters, terrorist attacks, massacres, and protests flash across television, computer and cell phone screens around the world, flooding our collective consciousness with images of pain, death and violence. Using the mixture of magical realism, pop iconography and street-art style that have become hallmarks of the artist’s artistic output, Ronald Ventura’s Apocalyptic Channel (Lot 48) captures the effect that media has on modern life, and our role as consumers of the material that assaults us on a daily basis.
Born in Manila, Philippines, where he was an instructor at the University of Santo Tomas, Ronald Ventura paints using a unique visual vernacular that juxtaposes principles of classical painting with elements of street art and popular culture, borrowing from diverse sources including Renaissance culture and Disney iconography. His style of pulling together and collating contrasting motifs into a playful bricolage echoes the precedent set by postmodern artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Richard Hamilton, who similarly borrowed images from the media and other sources to combine them in ways that produced emotional reactions and connections in viewers.
In Apocalyptic Channel, the explosive force issuing from the television screen is painted with discrete overlapping layers like graffiti on a wall, at times interacting with and at times entirely removed from other elements of the work. Largely painted in black and white, the only hints of colour to be seen lurk within the gathering clouds and cascade from the firecracker, drawing our eye to the centre of the action while warning of impending carnage. Smoke twines in and out of a nearby fan, while distorted forms cascade like ink over the sleeping man though never seeming to touch him. The overall aesthetic is one of a street-inspired collage, cohesive yet discrete, as chaos is given structure and visual form. According to Ventura, “The main function of art… is to provide leads or cues for people to reflect more deeply and question.” Like the works of Rauschenberg, the viewer is left drawing his own associations and conclusions from the disparate visual elements, encouraging a more personal response to the work.
Examined in detail, this piece contains clear references to Ventura’s Filipino heritage - the cheap plastic lawn chair and side table, the old television balanced on a stool, and the stark surroundings are all sights commonly seen throughout homes in the Philippines, while bottles of locally-produced Red Horse Beer and a packet of Fortune cigarettes firmly anchor the piece within a site-specific context. Yet other elements are less familiar, and seem out of place; silhouettes of deer leap outward from the television set while another stands serene and statuesque on the side table, like spirits emerging from the television that have already begun to take root in everyday life. A boxing glove with the logo UFC emblazoned across the knuckles flies out of the screen towards a palm tree, while a hooded man holding a firecracker and beating a big bass drum stands like an ominous omen from a half-forgotten dream. The mixture of well-known and obscure symbols hints to the mixture of global and local influences in the media, while reminding us of the Philippines’ turbulent colonial history, suggesting the complexity of the imagery that influence our minds and thoughts.
Yet despite the specificity of the place and the elements that explode from the television, the sleeping figure is an everyman; we cannot see his face or identify who he is. Ventura’s paintings often contain themes of isolation, featuring single figures fractured by collaged images. In this respect, Apocalyptic Channel resembles works by Francis Bacon, who had a similar interest in the darker aspects of the human psyche. Ventura’s effacement of the man’s facial features obscures the identity of the sleeping figure, transforming him into a pure victim, everyone and no one as he is smothered in his sleep.
When asked in an interview with Lucy Rees if he regards painting as an escape, Ventura responded “It’s not an escape; it’s more like a release for me. We are so bombarded with bad things happening. There is so much influx of images that they seem to suffocate me, and sometimes it’s hard to digest everything.” In that sense, Apocalyptic Channel may in some ways serve as a self-portrait or have some biographical elements, as Ventura seeks catharsis for the psychological pressures experienced day-today.
While this work is enigmatic in its details, the visual message being conveyed is clear: a warning of the perils of our dependence on the media. Standing before the work, it is easy to imagine ourselves as the sleeping figure, unwitting victims of a violent attack. Yet even in this context we are positioned as watchers, witnesses to a frozen moment where we are unable to rescue the man from his onslaught. As viewers and consumers of media, there are times when each of us feels helpless to resist the way it pushes and pulls on our emotions, shaping the way we perceive the world around us on a profound level. Whether or not we consciously acknowledge these effects, Ventura’s work forces us to come to terms with the “different dimensions of reality” that are spawned as a result of our exposure to modern media.
- Ronald Ventura
Every day, scenes from natural disasters, terrorist attacks, massacres, and protests flash across television, computer and cell phone screens around the world, flooding our collective consciousness with images of pain, death and violence. Using the mixture of magical realism, pop iconography and street-art style that have become hallmarks of the artist’s artistic output, Ronald Ventura’s Apocalyptic Channel (Lot 48) captures the effect that media has on modern life, and our role as consumers of the material that assaults us on a daily basis.
Born in Manila, Philippines, where he was an instructor at the University of Santo Tomas, Ronald Ventura paints using a unique visual vernacular that juxtaposes principles of classical painting with elements of street art and popular culture, borrowing from diverse sources including Renaissance culture and Disney iconography. His style of pulling together and collating contrasting motifs into a playful bricolage echoes the precedent set by postmodern artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Richard Hamilton, who similarly borrowed images from the media and other sources to combine them in ways that produced emotional reactions and connections in viewers.
In Apocalyptic Channel, the explosive force issuing from the television screen is painted with discrete overlapping layers like graffiti on a wall, at times interacting with and at times entirely removed from other elements of the work. Largely painted in black and white, the only hints of colour to be seen lurk within the gathering clouds and cascade from the firecracker, drawing our eye to the centre of the action while warning of impending carnage. Smoke twines in and out of a nearby fan, while distorted forms cascade like ink over the sleeping man though never seeming to touch him. The overall aesthetic is one of a street-inspired collage, cohesive yet discrete, as chaos is given structure and visual form. According to Ventura, “The main function of art… is to provide leads or cues for people to reflect more deeply and question.” Like the works of Rauschenberg, the viewer is left drawing his own associations and conclusions from the disparate visual elements, encouraging a more personal response to the work.
Examined in detail, this piece contains clear references to Ventura’s Filipino heritage - the cheap plastic lawn chair and side table, the old television balanced on a stool, and the stark surroundings are all sights commonly seen throughout homes in the Philippines, while bottles of locally-produced Red Horse Beer and a packet of Fortune cigarettes firmly anchor the piece within a site-specific context. Yet other elements are less familiar, and seem out of place; silhouettes of deer leap outward from the television set while another stands serene and statuesque on the side table, like spirits emerging from the television that have already begun to take root in everyday life. A boxing glove with the logo UFC emblazoned across the knuckles flies out of the screen towards a palm tree, while a hooded man holding a firecracker and beating a big bass drum stands like an ominous omen from a half-forgotten dream. The mixture of well-known and obscure symbols hints to the mixture of global and local influences in the media, while reminding us of the Philippines’ turbulent colonial history, suggesting the complexity of the imagery that influence our minds and thoughts.
Yet despite the specificity of the place and the elements that explode from the television, the sleeping figure is an everyman; we cannot see his face or identify who he is. Ventura’s paintings often contain themes of isolation, featuring single figures fractured by collaged images. In this respect, Apocalyptic Channel resembles works by Francis Bacon, who had a similar interest in the darker aspects of the human psyche. Ventura’s effacement of the man’s facial features obscures the identity of the sleeping figure, transforming him into a pure victim, everyone and no one as he is smothered in his sleep.
When asked in an interview with Lucy Rees if he regards painting as an escape, Ventura responded “It’s not an escape; it’s more like a release for me. We are so bombarded with bad things happening. There is so much influx of images that they seem to suffocate me, and sometimes it’s hard to digest everything.” In that sense, Apocalyptic Channel may in some ways serve as a self-portrait or have some biographical elements, as Ventura seeks catharsis for the psychological pressures experienced day-today.
While this work is enigmatic in its details, the visual message being conveyed is clear: a warning of the perils of our dependence on the media. Standing before the work, it is easy to imagine ourselves as the sleeping figure, unwitting victims of a violent attack. Yet even in this context we are positioned as watchers, witnesses to a frozen moment where we are unable to rescue the man from his onslaught. As viewers and consumers of media, there are times when each of us feels helpless to resist the way it pushes and pulls on our emotions, shaping the way we perceive the world around us on a profound level. Whether or not we consciously acknowledge these effects, Ventura’s work forces us to come to terms with the “different dimensions of reality” that are spawned as a result of our exposure to modern media.