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Ronante S. Maratas of the FEATI University School of Fine Arts wins grand prize in the 28th Metrobank Art & Design Excellence competition
On a balmy Thursday evening at the Le Pavillon in Manila, a young and promising student of FEATI University’s School of Fine Arts (SFA) received a very prestigious award and a windfall cash bounty that most young men his age could only dream about. His name is Ronante S. Maratas, a 4th year student under the tutelage of SFA Associate Dean Janice L. Young, and Faculty Advisor Neil M. Dela Cruz. Metrobank Foundation in a press release stated that the winning art pieces in this year's competition are a "display of courageous audacity in breaking conceptual and artistic norms." With experimental takes, strong imagery, exquisite technique, and unconventional painting styles, Maratas and all of the winners of the 2012 Metrobank Art & Design Excellence Awards (MADE) earned their place among the roster of winners of this 28-year-old art and design competition. Thus, Maratas’ presence was not only expected but absolutely required.
Anchored on the theme, Spirit of Figure, he won the grand prize in the Painting category for his entry, Undoing Ruin (Oil Based Medium on Canvas), which according to the artist “alights from a dream. A tale of a friendship that had strayed and a story of the realization that such a failure has to be faced with maturity and insight.” The panel of judges on the category Ronante entered was composed of Corazon Alvina, former Director of the National Museum of the Philippines, former President and Trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, and the current co-curator of an exhibition on the Philippines for the Musée de Quai Branly in Paris; Dr. Patrick Flores, Professor of Art Studies at the Department of Art Studies at UP Diliman, Curator of the Vargas Museum, Adjunct Curator of the National Art Gallery in Singapore, Visiting Fellow at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and current member of the Guggenheim Museum’s Art Council; Gus Albor, Visual Artist and one of the most admired abstractionists in Philippine modern art; Noell El Farrol, Visual Artist whose outdoor sculptures can be found in Vietnam, the United Arab Emirates, and Korea and was himself the recipient of Metrobank Foundation’s Prize Achievement Award in Sculpture in 2009; Mark Justiniani, co-founder of two seminal mural groups of the last two decades who has represented the Philippines in exhibitions abroad; Nemesio Miranda, a Visual Artist who has figured prominently in the Angono art scene and is the current chair of the Committee on Visual Arts of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts; and last but not the least, Dr. Reuben Ramas Cañete, Professor of Asian art and culture at the Asian Center of UP Diliman, and author of Sacrificial Bodies: The Oblation and the Political Aesthetics of Masculine Representations in Philippine Visual Cultures and Art and Its Contexts: Essays, Reviews, and Interviews on Philippine Art. Maratas won the judges' approval for his "obscure images of eyes, unrecognizable figures, figures of different species, hands, and thick slashes of colors chaotically displayed and rendered in bright colors."
The judges flocked to the victor’s side when the usually reserved young man came off the stage brimming with happiness and pride while tightly clutching the beautifully-carved glass trophy (sculpted by visual artist Noell El Farol) as if to say “I’m never letting this award out of my sight!” Equally beaming with pride and happiness were mentors SFA Associate Dean, Janice L. Young, Art Professor/Instructor Neil M. Dela Cruz, Maratas’ parents, and brother Ronnel.
Aside from his trophy, Maratas came away from the event with a six-figure cheque. When asked what he would do with it he said, “Para po sa pamilya ko.” (AMD)
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