At the height of the Second World War, Galo Ocampo served as a captain in the guerilla movement and led intelligence activities. As a cover, Ocampo created stage backdrops for actor/director Fernando Poe Sr. and his Associated Artists Group. Ocampo's tasks led him toward a precarious fate. His dreadful experience as a guerilla, the harrowing destruction of the nation, and the slaughter of its people left an almost irreversible damage to his disposition. The succeeding years after the culmination of the war in 1945 were a period of reconstruction, rehabilitation, and recovery. Restoring the morale and uplifting the people's spirit was also an arduous task, and Ocampo was not exempted from this. Throughout the 1950s, Ocampo continued to be haunted by the holocaust of the war. Due to his affiliation with the Catholic faith, the artist produced a series of poignant and thoughtprovoking works that situated the Filipino Catholic practice of flagellation into the native post-war experience—the Flagellant series. In the midst of trauma, Ocampo found solace in images of Christ's passion. Thus, he was able to contextualize native tradition within the peripheries of collective experience. This piece is one of Ocampo's early paintings of the series. Here, a man tied to a cross carries the object of suffering as he exhaustingly walks towards the ruins of a war-torn Spanish colonial-era church. A flagellant's veil covers the man's face, with laurel leaves on his head. His posture conveys submission. For penitents, the act of flagellation is a way to cleanse one's soul of sins and grant wishes. Here, Ocampo expounds on the definition and relates it to the people's resounding pleas for recuperation. Although the man is burdened by suffering and submits himself towards an uncertain end, he is still bound by faith and hope, searching for a way towards healing. (A.M)
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Galo Ocampo (1913 - 1985)
Untitled (Flagellant Series)
signed and dated 1952 (lower right)
oil on canvas
20" x 16" (51 cm x 41 cm)