Manuel Ocampo - Sacred and Profane
Ocampo's
imagery manages to be simultaneously ugly and beautiful, as though to echo
an internal culture clash. Born in the Philippines, he moved to Seattle
when he was in his teens and then studied art at CSU Bakersfield. His work
embodies the inherent conflicts of a Filippino immigrant. Love for his
native country, which endured centuries of Spanish rule, is wedded to his
ambivalent feelings towards his adopted country and the pervasive American
influence in the Philippines.
Overlaying
the complex weave of his cultural confusion are the resonant threads of
man's inhumanity to man. Ocampo mixes potent political symbols, such as
the swastika, with sacred religious elements. The whole is tied together
with scatological and sexual references. Like the Spanish colonial
paintings he once recreated for a thriving market in fake religious
imagery, Ocampo's work has a masterful painterly presence that gives his
shocking symbols and blatant imagery psychological depth and tension. His
figures act out their roles on a brightly lit stage or landscape, and the
whole performance becomes a morality play gone awry.
Ocampo
adeptly tosses together the sacred and profane in a mesmerizing fashion.
Instead of a welter of ideas and imagery, his paintings are unified
statements of passion and integrity.
In
Pilipinas (O'Bathala), a black Satanic figure is restrained from a pink
house labeled "Pilipinas' by a giant, dismemebered hand. Tossed
around in giant turquoise waves, the pink house is surrounded by floating
skulls and tree branches. Iconic and simple, this odd imagery compels the
viewer to ask question. No answers are forthcoming, for Ocampo is a master
at establishing an emotional limbo filled with turmoil.
The
spectacular Die Kreuzigung Christi contains an ominous red-hooded figure
who spears a Holy Bible framed by an elaborate cross. Revolving around
this arresting vignette are various symbols, words and images that
increase the mystery of this drama. Crumbling buildings deteriorate and
fall down in the background, evoking the ruins of a war zone.
His
startling Untitled (Burnt Out Europe) could be an updated take on
Hieronoymus Bosch's vision of Hell. A winged Christ hovers over two
swastikas as a death camp swarms with satanic figures. Ocampo's rich
colors of warm crimson, grey, black, brown and gold are borrowed directly
from the Spanish masters--and completes this apocalyptic vision of a world
gone mad.
Ironically,
Ocampo's nightmarish visions are rooted in reality and his frightening
tableaux become uncanny icons to the brutality of the past and present.
His paintings convey such an emotional intensity that his grab bag of
leaded symbols, words and imagery are seamlessly joined together in a
contemporary Twilight Zone.
