Added Sep 14, 2016
It’s pointless to box Marcial Pontillas into a single category when it comes to the strokes he puts on canvas.
As a multi-award-winning painter from the Philippines, he’s been described as everything from an impressionist to neo-expressionist.
His work has been seen all over the globe because that’s where art has taken him.
And most recently, he’s planted his feet in Guam, slowly showcasing the range of his art at a variety of exhibitions.
The Guam Art Exhibit, for example, is an event that speaks to artists like Pontillas.
“It brings out your alter ego,” he says of GAX. Soon, he’ll be putting on a one-man show with the help of production team Project Inspire to showcase his current collection.
Dubbed the “crowd painter,” for his massive scenes of humanity squeezed together on canvas, Pontillas most definitely has an alter ego, one that dabbles in the abstract.
His award-winning crowd paintings stretch back to some of his earliest work done in the 1990s while a student at Far Eastern University in Manila, Philippines.
“I hate crowds,” the 40-year-old Dededo resident says.
A 2009 oil on canvas painting by artist Marcial Pontillas entitled, "I'm Looking At You" as seen in Hagåtña on Thursday, Aug. 11. (Photo: Rick Cruz/PDN)
Pontillas originally is from the quiet Bicol province and moved to Manila to pursue art at Far Eastern University. Unlike sleepy Bicol, Manila is bustling with activity. While at a busy overpass, inspiration struck him.
“I can see the traffic from rush hour,” he recalls. “The concept, this traffic, is going to be my subject.”
The oil 30x30 inch “Sobra Na!” was the first time he had depicted a sea of people in his work, drawing from the busy image in his head and exaggerating it with more people sandwiched together and stretched along the canvas.
The work won first place and was printed in the 1996 PLDT-DPC Telephone Directory.
“That was the start,” he says. “I didn’t know my painting would take first place. My teacher, my mentor said I have to continue this. You never know if it’s going to be your trademark.”
As a student, Pontillas won year after year with additional work depicting different chaotic scenes of clustered bodies.
After he graduated, he continued teaching at the very same school he developed his trade, for a decade.
Much of his large format, crowd work continued when he moved to Guam in 2011.
His first piece upon touchdown is “Hafa adai,” no bodies included in the details. Instead, he painted a Philippine Airlines plane gliding over the island, marking his arrival.
The crowd painter, however, returned, with large format pieces that have made multiple appearances at GAX exhibits.
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Artist Marcial Pontillas found inspiration at the Guam International Film Festival 2015 to paint this oil on canvas imagery as seen in Hagåtña on Thursday, Aug. 11. Pontillas simply entitled this creation, "GIFF." (Photo: Rick Cruz/PDN)
“Before, a portion of my early work there was a grid,” Pontillas explains. “I study again, how I’m thinking I’m going to make the grid zoom in and make it more visible in the background of my painting in the crowd. In the next series. The painting is over a crowd and the grid is over a crowd. I made a series with the grid. The idea from the crowd is like guessing what is happening inside the crowd.”
Take the piece “NK Nuclear Core High Explosive,” seen at this and last year’s GAX exhibitions.
In the background, Pontillas paints an image of soldiers in the midst of war from the movie “Hamburger Hill,” depicted from the infamous Vietnam-era battle.
Pontillas was inspired to paint the scene with a grid after North Korea had threatened to direct its missiles at Guam a couple of years ago.
“Once I got the background done, I wondered what I was going to put on top,” he says.
“The grid is a nuclear diagram. I put the hamburger as a plutonium. There’s a small round thing there and I replaced it, that’s the plutonium.”
It all starts to make sense when you see his other pieces, including “Food Stamp Madness.”
Pontillas takes another crowded scene and puts it on canvas, this time an image of a grocery store completely jammed with people.
“The grid is the inside of the birds eye view of the shopping and it’s crowded and I’m thinking it looks like panic buying,” he says. “It’s a chaos of shopping. When I put the grid down, zoom in, so it’s a shopping cart. Those are the people doing from the distance, they see the wheel, and some image. But it’s an empty shopping cart. The one holding that, came late, but it’s already full of people. You’re going to fill up your cart but it’s crowded and everyone’s cart is full but yours.”
The grid pattern atop of the painting is the lines of an empty shopping cart.
You can catch some of Pontillas’ work at different coffee shops and stores across the island, and look forward to next year’s GAX where he plans on expanding his artwork into the three-dimensional abstract.
http://www.guampdn.com/story/entertainment/pika-magazine/2016/08/31/pontillas-neo-expressionism-captivates-dabbles-abstract/88816728/