'Viajes' new works of Pinggot Zulueta opens at Galerie Francesca Megamall on February 21

Visual Artist Jose “Pinggot” Zulueta has created paintings with  images of migration and the migrant’s eternal return to his home – aptly called the troubled voyages of a migrant’s heart that belongs to two places, for his fourth one-man show at Galerie Francesca in Mandaluyong’s Megamall, from February 21 to March 3.

 

To capture the migrant’s conflicting world of belonging and being detached, Zulueta’s diptychs and triptychs combine two manners of expressions: abstract and figurative works, the first, to denote emotions and impulses with colors and gestures; the second, to depict the tension of a migrant’s homecoming and leaving.  To underline the psychological narrative of this tension, his abstract-cum-figurative pieces (some are also stand alone figurations) have titles such as Meditation; Introspection; Night Walker; Oblivion; Wind Talker; Blue Figure; Blue Night; Quiet Mind; Flight; Figure Rising; Moon Dancer; and Melancholia in Blue.

 

Curated by Renato Habulan, Zulueta’s show entitled Viajes depict, in essence, a migrant’s alienation, how it is willfully erased by coming home; how one eventually realizes that home is not a place but one’s soul, thus, his figurative pieces speak of be-coming. At the same time, home is also about fond memories abroad, that maddening and still alluring world where one has learned to assert heroically, and quite ironically, one’s identity through clashes and interactions with aliens.

 

Also included in Viajes are Zulueta’s stand alone abstract pieces – which are all about retracing his footsteps towards his alien home. Their apt titles are Imagining Parramatta River; Dreaming of North Shore; Castle Hills Memories; Albany on My Mind, and Thinking of Eden Crescent.

 

This year, Zulueta will soon launch a coffee table book, a compilation of his photographs of 75 artists in their  studios. Educated at the College of Architecture and Fine Arts at the University of Santo Tomas, he has captured the work-spaces of important artists, such as National Artists Bencab, Arturo Luz, and the late Federico Aguilar Alcuaz to name a few.

In 2012, Zulueta’s 40 editorial illustrations, a collection of his almost daily output for a tabloid newspaper was part of a group show entitled Papelismo, at Crucible Gallery in SM Megamall.

 

In 2005, his travails as a migrant were translated into surreal images of a man with clipped wings -- of his exhibit entitled  “Aotearoa Series” in New York’s Philippine Consulate . In 2002, his images of political and socio-economic events for a show entitled “Asinta: Images and Imageries”; In 1985, he painted, in representational style, marine life for, a show entitled “Tilamsik.” Press release and photos from Galerie Francesca