Installation of Five Physical Senses (Septuple Portrait of Ambeth Ocampo) in Ambeth's bedroom.
I must say, gorgeous bedroom!
In this portrait, I rendered the subject at different ages and at different stages in his life. I chose the colors of the panels in the background--maroon, green, and blue--to correspond with the three academic institutions he worked in.
Most of my paintings have theatrical settings, perhaps because I am a playwright. The clouds above are cut-out props used in classical Greek drama. The inlaid table, the gas lamp, and the antique, Chinese chair are actual items in the subject's possession; so, of course, are all of the clothes he is wearing.
The bitten apple has the whitest white of all--it is not painted on, it is the bare prime of the canvas, which I simply painted around.
Suzanne Duque Salvo, who has a master's degree in Divinity, offers Ambeth her interpretation:
"First, that this painting was installed in your bedroom suggests intimacy, so could be the message and meaning. It is after all a portrait of you, but parsed.
"That the work is called Five Senses prompts one to look for what conveys sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing. Finding them all in the upper half of the frame makes me think of delineation of body and finitude, and the other part (given that the artist, whose profile I peeked into, has hermeneutics as his other calling) would be immortality and soul, confirmed by the presence in the center of the lamp, which isn’t the usual color of light and fire, but green. Biblical green is not just hope, spring (ergo resurrection) but eternal life or immortality.
"Where is ’immortality for you’? Which now brings my attention to the lower half of the painting. Through your writings obviously, as indicated by the you in Filipiniana, holding pen. But that’s not enough. I was taught to hone my ‘religious imagination’ and meaning-making, so I will dare say that the artist painted a sleeping you—in a monk’s habit at that— to remind you of the times, as with many figures in the Bible, when God speaks to those male figures.
"What comes out of you in word or deed is what touches people, when you put, as Parker Palmer says, ‘soul in your role.’ And as if to underscore all this, the lamp in the center, calls to mind Rizal’s story of the mother and offspring moth, and the caution on not going near the flame cause the kid moth will burn. But theologically, it is OK to go near the flame to be enlightened by wisdom and the knowledge of Good and Evil (the figure with the bitten fruit implies the connection/relationship) BUT --- the stance to approach that flame/light is when one might as well be ‘resting on the Lord’, asleep; and also in monks’ language, in meditation, in total surrender."
I must say, gorgeous bedroom!
In this portrait, I rendered the subject at different ages and at different stages in his life. I chose the colors of the panels in the background--maroon, green, and blue--to correspond with the three academic institutions he worked in.
Most of my paintings have theatrical settings, perhaps because I am a playwright. The clouds above are cut-out props used in classical Greek drama. The inlaid table, the gas lamp, and the antique, Chinese chair are actual items in the subject's possession; so, of course, are all of the clothes he is wearing.
The bitten apple has the whitest white of all--it is not painted on, it is the bare prime of the canvas, which I simply painted around.
Suzanne Duque Salvo, who has a master's degree in Divinity, offers Ambeth her interpretation:
"First, that this painting was installed in your bedroom suggests intimacy, so could be the message and meaning. It is after all a portrait of you, but parsed.
"That the work is called Five Senses prompts one to look for what conveys sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing. Finding them all in the upper half of the frame makes me think of delineation of body and finitude, and the other part (given that the artist, whose profile I peeked into, has hermeneutics as his other calling) would be immortality and soul, confirmed by the presence in the center of the lamp, which isn’t the usual color of light and fire, but green. Biblical green is not just hope, spring (ergo resurrection) but eternal life or immortality.
"Where is ’immortality for you’? Which now brings my attention to the lower half of the painting. Through your writings obviously, as indicated by the you in Filipiniana, holding pen. But that’s not enough. I was taught to hone my ‘religious imagination’ and meaning-making, so I will dare say that the artist painted a sleeping you—in a monk’s habit at that— to remind you of the times, as with many figures in the Bible, when God speaks to those male figures.
"What comes out of you in word or deed is what touches people, when you put, as Parker Palmer says, ‘soul in your role.’ And as if to underscore all this, the lamp in the center, calls to mind Rizal’s story of the mother and offspring moth, and the caution on not going near the flame cause the kid moth will burn. But theologically, it is OK to go near the flame to be enlightened by wisdom and the knowledge of Good and Evil (the figure with the bitten fruit implies the connection/relationship) BUT --- the stance to approach that flame/light is when one might as well be ‘resting on the Lord’, asleep; and also in monks’ language, in meditation, in total surrender."
