The Greats

We’re a generation raised with ease in mind, brought into the world of instant coffee and instant noodles and automated teller machines and powdered formula milk, standard operating procedures, standard school manuals, global standards, rules and regulations, where all shirt sizes are medium and all colors are gray, in a world where everything has been invented and designed and tuned to perfection, and if there were questions, Google would answer

We’ve lived our lives as if we were worthy to build monuments for, in a world who taught us to believe in ourselves, self-indulgent and narcissistic and egocentric, to chase your dreams and follow the trail of passion, little cities we sculpted out of clicks and drags and sweep all that’s unflattering beneath the rugs using our un-tired feet, heroes in our own world and in our own terms

We are a generation deprived of greats – we are afraid of infamy, insanity, absurdity, the sore thumb, the black sheep, nonconformity, where rebels sit on lofty armchairs and yell against the system using a standard-issue battery-operated megaphone, empty statuses and tweets and quotes borrowed from obscure blog posts and newspaper run-intos, and we go to sleep and dream of conformity, dream of our mother’s womb, dream of monarchic order, where everything in history that’s been done by Hitler and Caesar and Nero is not to be emulated

We are a generation of pretentious makers, self-styled masters of styles of carbon copies and patched-up mosaics of magazine clippings from history, and we shit on it like we own it. What we say is apparently what we believe in and not what we believe in is what we say, for we were raised in a world of point-of-purchase, shock advertising, call-to-actions and name recall, and what matters is not why you do it and how you do it but what you do and who you are and how you look and what shoes you wear and what brands you rock. We’ve got no more Dalis, no more Da Vincis, no more Mozarts, no more Shakespeares, because we’re all Dalis, Da Vincis, Mozarts, Shakespears in our own right and we believe it so under a strong hallucinatory sensation

We’re a generation of hollows and empty shells and we go through journeys of picking up things we like to believe in and we call ours, and out of desperation, select fragments of hollywood stars and local TV actors to fill a hole that’s inside us that’s been deprived of self-thought, independent thinking, and developed tastes, we’re blatantly copying from copies, we’re putting together amalgamations of amalgams, and we shit on it like we own it

We’re a generation where ‘great’ has lost its meaning in between all the reblogs and retweets and favorites and likes and shares and definitions, where meaning is for topical application and descriptions are tooltip highlights, where association is preferred over understanding

and undeniably, we’re great at it. 

-marc abuan

High Five: Jan Sunday

That perennial exotic night lady who smokes and kicks your balls by the way she walks and talks pours out her flesh and bone in her own deconstruction of art. She keeps a day job and like every heroine in every comic book, she has something dark to hide at night. The way she does it is far from beautiful according to the norm, or quite the opposite of tradition and is an irony to her very women-ness. Breasts, nipples and both of the labias (Minora and Majora) speak so much about who she is. Literally. Jan Sunday has been in countless group indie pop-up shows and not to mention the show she’s had with her band, Tiger Pussy, where she’s the vocalist.

1. If you got stranded on an island and got a chance to bring one person who would it be? And why?

V. Woolf but my boss asked me this question once when he got drunkand then told me to pick a man coz for sure there will be some humpin.

And that man? i will never tell.

2. What do you think you were in the past life? And why?

The first wife of a notorious gangster/criminal... or a suicidal artist or writer in the early 1900s

3. Tell us about the subjects in your artworks.

Mostly are self portraits and secrets.

4. Does Post Menstrual Syndrome (PMS) affects the effect of your artwork?

No, but im more productive when depressed.

5. How many marshmallows can you fit in your mouth?

If i tell you, i'd be givin' too much away.

Jan Sunday

High Five: Danielle Sy

Danielle Sea is currently a third year student of the University of San Carlos, taking up Fine Arts Major in Advertising Arts. She is just a kid who wants to draw pretty little things and pretty little girls. Her subjects are mostly soft watercolored pretty girls with long shiny locks full of flowers. Her gentle strokes and lines never stray far from her own tender personality. 

1. Why do you like girls as subjects? 

Girls have soft edges.

2. What's your favorite medium? Why? 

Watercolor. I've started with the really cheap ones for kids in highschool and  recently took it to heart during the start of college and got myself collecting brushes and mixing colors. I love how the paint just goes with the flow of the water, and how much control you have to assert at certain times to achieve what you want with a piece.

3. Have you ever seen a ghost? 

I'm not sure, talawan bitaw ko. (I'm not sure, I'm a scardey-cat.)  

4. What do you think a ghost would look like if you saw one?You can draw it. 

Its somewhere there.

5. How's school?

Pretty cool.

Danielle Sy

High Five: Nikka Uminga

Nikka Uminga is a fish-out-of-water from Manila, now living in Cebu. An interior designer and artist currently working as the head designer for furniture design prodigy, Vito Selma.

Her art style is largely inspired by art nouveau, 1920s flapper girls, flowers, pearls, and tattoos from the Kalinga province up north. She has been participating in group exhibitions for almost three years now, and has also done a number of mural works.

A myriad of artists inspire her, including Audrey Kawasaki, Nicc Balce, Alphonse Mucha, and Gustav Klimt, just to name a few.

Her choice of media break away from the typical, standard fare, utilizing wood furniture finishes, such as wood oil stains, wood dyes, wood tints, and colored varnish.

She aims for a bit of sensuality in her work, which she executes by infusing 1920s flapper fashion styles in her artwork, a bit of Art Deco sensibilities.

1. Why do you love wood as your surface or background texture image?

I preferred wood as my canvas and furniture finishes to be my medium because it enhances the wood grain more and the beauty of the wood that is usually applied in furniture. I obviously love how each grain are different from another which compliment my subjects in the painting itself.

2. What is the difference between the Manila and Cebu art scene?

Cebu scene for contemporary art has just started making its way here in the city and it is best described to be like Manila scene before who contemporary artists of today started to introduce to the audience. Cebu art are as good as Manila art but the difference is the audience to which most of the Cebuanos prefer going to Manila and buy art. That's the irony of it. But I see how Cebu artists are working hard and I can tell in time, it will be like Manila scene as well.

3. If you are granted a power to change the color of mongol pencil, what would it be and why?

Turquoise. Its should be blue but I think its the best color in the world for drawing. You don't need to erase but it blends with the other colors pretty well.

4. How many trees did you plant in your entire life?

Back in my childhood... Lots of them. We have a farm up north in Luzon and my family worked together to plant the seedlings. My dad believes that it is worth it if you plant them and tell to your kids in the future that you did it for them.

5. Sketch your dream place.

Nikka Uminga

High Five: Jethro Estimo

Jethro Estimo, familiar to graphic designer ears, started Pow Designs in 1998. With years of involvement in the graphic design scene he has always gone back to his artist roots by creating digital artworks, proving that graphic design is not only confined to commercial work. A few of his inspirations are artist Hieronymus Bosch, surrealist Rene Magritte, and American cartoonists Art Spiegelmann and Don Martin. He is also a lecturer at the Fine Arts Department of University of the Philippines. Jethro has been included in a myriad of art shows.

I Am Your G.O.D (Guard On Duty)

1. What would be the first thing you'd do if you woke up one day and you turned into the opposite sex?

Buy Tampons

2. What was the most awkward situation you've been in?

When I bought Tampons and turned back into a man inside a 711.

Yes, Jan

3. If you are granted a power to change the color of mongol pencil, what would it be and why?

I cannot imagine changing the color of the pencil, changing the numbers to letters, however, is good.

4. Do you think Epson would be the new Winsor & Newton?

I am still trying to squeeze the colour out of an Epson, so far, it did not work.

Red Eye Close Up

5. Does your third eye has an "eye for detail"?

My goat's eye can see better.

Jethro Estimo

High Five: Banawe Corvera

Banawe Corvera is a content writer who compiles one-line musings in a rather obscure blog; a portrait/lifestyle photographer on the side and a full-time doting cat lady to Madness.

She is a womanizer, having been known to prefer female subjects and committing to a lifetime of glorifying muses through her personal pursuits.

The common themes that run throughout Banawe’s photographic compilation are melancholy, women and the rural life.

She explores pensive sadness, sensuality and ideas of “home” or “belongingness” through black-and-white portraits, landscapes and abstractions.

She believes that black-and-white best represents her melancholic self, having the tendency to be drawin to loneliness, and using this as a leverage for the creation process.

In a more romantic sense, she draws inspiration from the quiet calm of dark and empty rooms, the fluidity and rage of the waters, the features of women and the changing landscape of life.

1.What is the difference between expressing via words and expressing via photographs?

In a literal sense, the difference is that photos are definitely more visual. You see how the elements combine to form a singular thought/impression. Of course meanings can also alter for every viewer.

Where words fail you, a photograph can command attention and speak volumes when seen from different perspectives.

However, it is also important to acknowledge the ability of the written language to "paint a picture", to paint one so vividly that you can already envision an "image" in your mind.

Ultimately, in terms of expression, both writings and photographs simply coexist, they need not be different.

2. Do cats fuel your creativity?

My cat is my safety blanket, rather. after shoots and chasing ideas, cats are my retreat from the creative process.

3. Imagine that the world had no color at all or black and white, would you want your pictures to be colored?

Only if i'm aware of the concept of "color". Otherwise, i wouldn't mind.

4. What do you think you were in the past life? And why?

An abstract expressionist painter. I've always wanted to paint. That's why I also take abstract photographs - to recreate that desire.

5. If you were a cloud, why?

Because I used to believe that we would all eventually build houses on clouds and live ala Jetsons!

Banawe Corvera