Aaron Bautista

Aaron Villamayor Bautista was born September 2, 1973 in Angono Rizal. He conducted his studies on the University of the Philippines Diliman, College of Fine Arts Majoring in Painting. Bautista’s works employ the usage of found objects, such as corrugated boards, discarded coins, nails, and even enamel paint. His abstracts serve as visual metaphors of his hometown’s ongoing process of development towards urbanization, in both literal and allegorical aspects. Strong colors bleed simultaneously and spontaneously, along with some alternating crisscross of black and white lines. Gold and silver hues are also noticeable in his works, along with a pair of powerful play of colors such as red, yellow and blue. His works are vibrant and dynamic, and are often inspired by familiar images or nostalgic dreamscapes taken from his childhood memories of old Angono.  Aaron is also a top 10 finalist at Metrobank’s Painting Competition(1995) and a finalist of Shell National Student Art Competition(1994,1995). He was a resource person at the 1^st Angono Art  Congress. Aaron has also conducted numerous Art Seminars and Workshops around the Philippines. He is also a member of Neo Angono Artist Collective Incorporated, Angono Ateliers Association,and Artepinas associated. “Rustic Scenes” is his 11^th solo exhibtion.

RUSTIC SCENES

Aaron Bautista’s abstracts could hardly be called non-representational.

Because his paintings actually do represent something, be it a forgotten landscape taken from a dream, or the convicted patron saint of a land crying on the swift, relentless verge of urban development. His works whisper a silent story, or perhaps, plunges its viewers into a cerebral activity of interpreting images according to one’s own understanding of visual metaphors painted in wild, spontaneous layering of colors and everyday objects that one could often find on streets and ongoing construction sites.

Rustic Scenes is all about the ongoing development of the artist’s hometown Angono, towards the fast-paced track of urbanization. What was once a calm, uninterrupted land of rice fields and is now surprisingly an industrial haven of paved roads, and constructed modern houses. The nipa huts are long gone, and the reminiscent spots of green pasture where children used to play are now replaced either by basketball courts, or the pullulating number closed, box-like houses called computer shops. However, with these ideologies and comparisons at hand, Bautista says that he is not purely against urban development. It just happens that the system of expansion itself is not perfect, consisting of both negative and positive components. “Perhaps on some aspects it’s too much.” The artist explains “they should’ve at least left some areas as they were.”  

And within the said concept of development, Aaron, incorporates the usage of familiar construction materials such ascorrugated boards, nails, and even enamel paint, because for him, Angono is still in a fragile, “under-construction” state. His solid layering of gold on large areas of his works usually depict land, or to be more specific, the old rice fields where he once dreamed, played, and somehow thought that he would be an artist someday. The masterful play of interlacing black lines are usually the field lines where farmers grew their rice and other semi aquatic crops. If his paintings are to be viewed closely, more details would be noticeable, such as the recurring patterns of birds and cows. His works might deceive the limiting constraints of form and representation, but they are perfectly presented in a contextual narrative outline, so that the viewer could find it comfortable to structure the order of his spontaneous, unrestrained strokes into one solid image and idea. Bautista’s canvasses definitely follows the basic aesthetic premises of abstract art, but eventually breaks them down in terms of idea and visual depiction, absolutely implying that his fierce movement of colors and thick drippings of paint are not merely random emotional upsurges, but concrete existing likenesses of things that we see, and sometimes, refuse to see.

I could hardly define Aaron Bautista’s masterworks as abstract.

                        ...Dave Lock



Kulay-Diwa Gallery of Philippine Contemporary Art is a privately owned venue for artistic expression. It is strategically located within a cluster of progressive communities South of Manila. It has an independent exhibition area able to accommodate large-scale works, and a spacious garden ideal for outdoor programs, performances and sculpture installations.

Goals of Kulay-Diwa

To discover and promote the works of talented, young and deserving Filipino Artist;

To serve as a cultural outpost and make the arts more accessible to the fast-growing communities South of Manila; and

To foster cultural interaction and exchanges with the local regions, Southeast Asia and other countries.

Kulay (Color)

Diwa (Spirit, Thought)





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