ABOUT THE WORK

Born in 1991, contemporary artist Ronson Culibrina received his formal training through a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from the Technological University of the Philippines. Since then he has received various accolades and opportunities such as a nomination in Forbes’ “30 under 30” artists in Asia list in 2016, and the prestigious Fernando Zobel prize for Visual Arts in 2018; the latter landing him a residency at Liverpool Hope University in the UK. Culibrina’s art exists within a unique intersection of traditional, modern, and contemporary modes of expression. His art is both a critical reaction and a logical endpoint to the vagaries of postmodern thought and expression that preceded his artistic maturation. His playful and whimsical pieces do not divorce themselves from context in favor of pure form, emotion, or expression. Instead, Culibrina taps into art’s potential as an analytic tool for our own history and historicity, yet he understands the need for novel and take in order properly situate an intersubjective and holistic sense of understanding. For Culibrina, nothing is too immaculate or revered enough to escape the scrutiny of artistic analysis and expression. This particular painting is drawn from master Filipino painter Juan Luna’s En el Palco, noted as a favorite, much-admired painting for its rich texture, revealing elegance and his dynamic style. The details are marvelously rendered in spontaneous, candid impasto brush strokes, from the opera box, bouquets, the dresses, and the building ornaments. (Image source: Pilar, Santiago Albano. Juan Luna: The Filipino as Painter, Eugenio Lopez Foundation Inc., 1980, 78–79.)