Some artists are either slow-burning in their creative process or they’re just too picky as to what to show the public.
While lesser filmmakers produce movies by the dozens, people like Bresson, Antonioni, Dreyer and Kubrick can show barely a dozen each in their lifetime. While lesser poets churn out verses by the volumes, Rimbaud and T.S. Eliot have turned out only a handful pieces. (But what films they are, and what poetry!)
Painter Dayong J. Mendoza is showing only his third solo show, and only 10 pieces in oil on canvas, after 14 years since his last exhibit at SM Megamall.
“Dyip! Dyip! Dyip!” is Mendoza’s passionate and personal take on that Filipino icon, the jeepney, ongoing until March 12 in Blue+Gray Gallery, L/2, Serendra, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig.
As he says: “Pinoy ka kung nakasakay ka na ng dyip.”
The pieces are characterized by broad lines, simplified forms and the highly contrasting colors of the Fauvists. The artist wields rapid brushstrokes to simplify the figures of humans and vehicles, and irregular lines to capture the gritty reality of urban life.
He sees this rococo-baroque mode of transport as something not only indigenously Filipino but also a microcosm of Philippine life—that is, “where there is a jeepney, there is a life story.”
Consider the backbreaking job of the man in “Barker”; the intense traffic and vehicular accident in “Biyaheng Langit”; overheating of motor in “Gasolinahan”; massive queue in “Sakayan”; late supper in a pondahan in “Last Trip”; the faceless rallyists waving red banners atop a jeepney in “Top Load”; even the minors going home late in “Uwi Na Kayo.”
Vibrant realism
The vitality of city life is reflected in Mendoza’s visions of crowded streets and jeepney terminals. The vibrant realism of his art, however, chiefly derives from his dynamic brushwork and use of strong, wild, pure colors.
He layers pigment upon pigment on the canvas to add volume and solidity to his form. For this particular exhibit, he primarily uses primary colors, resulting in a show more colorful than the previous ones.
It’s the layering that takes time, he says. Often he has to simultaneously work on several canvases while waiting for the pigments to dry.
The progression in one’s art, he believes, only reflects the maturity of one’s life—when “mas marami kang natutunan sa buhay.”
Mendoza started drawing when he was five years old, often copying the cars in the Hanna-Barbera animated TV series “Wacky Races.”
When his father, former Inquirer sports editor and fictionist Alfonso Mendoza, started taking him along to the office, that only enflamed his passion for drawing, as he had all the spare time and “libreng papel.”
By the time he was 10 years old, he was doing a spot cartoon twice a week for the Manila Bulletin. He was probably the youngest Filipino cartoonist ever.
Mendoza earned his Master of Fine Arts from University of the Philippines. Artists he admires include Danny Dalena, Van Gogh, Picasso, George Bellows, José Joya, Alfredo Liongoren, Neil Doloricon.
Religious art
In this exhibit, he has certainly applied the violent unreal color and dramatic brushwork of the Expressionists, and wielded the “extraordinary use of color and frenzied painting technique” of Van Gogh. One can also see the faceless and baldheaded human figures of Dalena, even his iconic askal on a desolate street corner in the piece “Boston.”
Though oil is his preferred medium, Mendoza is also into terra-cotta sculpture. He was mentored by Julie Lluch, and had collaborated with her daughter Aba on an 8-ft-tall, polychrome, terra-cotta relief depicting badminton players.
Also a basketball coach and an art instructor, Mendoza has been conducting for 16 years now an art-cum-sports workshop called Camp and Play at his place on Commonwealth Avenue, Quezon City.
So what’s next on the line? Do collectors have to wait a decade for his fourth exhibit?
“I can’t tell,” he says. “Maybe on the subject of golf. I’m also doing portraits, religious paintings, of churches, Jesus Christ, a praying man. As we grow older, lalo tayong lumalapit sa Diyos.”
A peek into this religious art is in this show, the piece called “Prusisyon.”
Mendoza dedicates the exhibit to his three kids: Mayo, 15; Dada, 14; and Migel, 11. “Sila ang tunay kong inspirasyon.”