Roy Veneracion
| Roy Veneracion | |
|---|---|
| Born |
July 31, 1947 Manila, Philippines |
| Education | University of Philippines |
| Awards | Cultural Center of the Philippines 13 Artists Awards for the Visual Arts |
Roy Veneracion (born 31 July 1947 in Manila, Philippines) is an influential painter whose work explores a wide range of styles, techniques, materials, and subject matter. He is considered as one of the leading Abstract artists in his country and the precursor of contemporary Aesthetic Syncretism. His work is associated with the Syncretism Art Movement in the Philippines and abroad.
The Philippines was granted full-independence by the United States on July 4, 1946, and in the neo- liberated atmosphere of Manila, Roy Veneracion became aware of his growing passion for Art. He attended elementary school at the Espiritu Santo Parochial School in Sta. Cruz Manila, a Catholic school run by Belgian nuns, where he earned early recognition for his artistic skills. Roy has no memory of drawing in the manner of children of his age. He was readily recognized as an art prodigy and became a sort of Artist-in-Residence in his grade school years, tasked to decorate the blackboard on special occasions and to create the biological and anatomical illustrations for his Science Classes, and to draw the maps for the Geography Subjects. But for Roy, this early recognition of his drawing skills was no "big deal" –for he dreamt of higher artistic accomplishments later on.
As he walked home from school in the bustling street of his neighborhood, when he was about eight years of age, he would often stop by a painter's shop to learn from the painter of movie billboards whose studio opened directly to the street. The quick dashes of brushstrokes by the painter that deftly captured in large scale, portraits of movie stars, the heroes and heroines of popular Komiks-book novellas impressed the young artist. But the more important influence and early mentor of Roy was his maternal uncle who recognized his talent and informally coached him and his older brother with tips on anatomy, proportion, chiaroscuro, linear perspective and animal drawing. This uncle, a dashing Army Captain, Bienvenido Santos, who fought in the underground resistance war against the Japanese as a guerillero, was a former student of the famous Fernando Amorsolo and the neo-Classicist Guillermo Tolentino, but his artistic ambitions were derailed by World War II and superseded by a career as an Army Officer. As Roy's proficiency in classical art advanced, his uncle gifted him with an Art book on figure drawing, a well kept oil paintbox, and a boxed set of pastel colors- a deeply received gesture of encouragment for Roy Veneracion.
As a second year high school student at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran, in Intramuros, Roy was awarded the first Prize in a student's Art Contest for a satirical ink drawing he did on the subject of professor and student's classroom interactions as his entry to the contest. In his third year, Roy was commissioned by his older brother's class to make a series of full body watercolor illustrations of all the characters in Jose Rizal's great novels: the Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. He received 35 pesos for each drawing done on separate sheets of Oslo paper and the works were displayed along the corridors of the U.E. Classrooms where he attended his senior years in High School.
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