This National Arts Month, we highlight Filipino art through Quaderno's Page Talk—a platform where we converse with the extraordinary talents shaping the present and future of Philippine art.
Marcel Antonio mines the potential of existence—from memories, reflections, ideas, and musings—to create Chagallesque artworks that inspire stories and imagination.
Literature Is What Makes Us Humans | acrylic on canvas (2019)
Influenced in the beginning by Dada artists and early modernism, for Antonio, “his work is a product of randomness and discovery, of playing with the work within certain limits and free-styling from there.”
In today's Page Talk, Looking for Juan chats with the revered painter to talk about his craft, creative inspiration, and the role of the Filipino artist in today's uncertain climate.
Insatiable Curiosity | acrylic on canvas (2019)
What inspires/motivates you to create?
“Inspiration comes to me in many forms, whether through books, films, art, etc. These forms speak to me emotionally and poetically, so the motivation is always the same. I feel the poetic component is more rarefied in nature than explicitly expressing an emotion; it takes a special kind of feeling to appreciate what is in essence poetic.”
What does your art represent?
“My paintings and drawings are a memory-store of these emotions and personal musings; they serve as vessels of ideas and stories that may or may not add to the meaning of existence (at least to me).”
