King Philippe the Hunter
signed and dated 2016 (lower right)
oil on canvas 72” x 60” (183 cm x 152 cm)
Provenance: Galerie Joacquin
An alumnus of the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts and a finalist of the Metrobank Foundation Painting Competition in 2005, Juanito Torres has gained the attention of the art scene with his parallelisms of history and contemporary life as a way of generating new narrative trajectories.
In this work, Jose Rizal is decontextualized from his usual milieu by virtue of the theatrical elements present that effectively ground his image within parody and lampoon. The two other images accompanying him—the Spanish dignitary and the idealized Filipina farm girl—evoke the intentionally jarring effect that symbolizes the contrasting contexts that are at the heart of the Filipino identity and experience.