Multiple-award winning Filipino artist Manuel Ocampo is exhibiting at Singapore’s STPI Gallery till 22nd June. Come see some of the world’s most thought-provoking artworks, bound to elicit equal parts attraction and repulsion.

From 18 May to 22 June 2019, Singapore-based dynamic creative workshop and contemporary art gallery STPI is presenting  Manuel Ocampo: Ideological Mash-Up/Remix. This exhibition showcases the engaging works of Manuel Ocampo, a contemporary Filipino artist whose conceptual productions often juxtapose secular, historical, and religious imagery to evoke socio-political criticism.

“The strong symbolism in my paintings is presented as empty signs. I want to push the conventions of painting to the point of ridicule…to go beyond thought.” – Manuel Ocampo

The Meeting, 2018, Etching and relief on paper, 38.6 x 60.2 cm

Today’s global culture is one of sensory overload – from smartphones to interactive billboards and outdoor screens, Ocampo challenges preconceived notions and perceptions of the world which surrounds us.

Ocampo’s representational, renderings of personal symbols and objects. are reminiscent of luminaries like Martin Kippenberger and Philip Guston.

“We have seen and learnt too much; we cannot see with old eyes”. – David Freedberg, The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response

Employing symbols and iconographies of faith, brutality and comic absurdity for which the artist is renowned, “Ideological Mash-Up/Remix” straddles between the familiar and the arbitrary. Take for example one of Ocampo’s seminal works – Virgin Destroyer (Ipis Ni Lupe) (1995), in which a cockroach is painted in the style of the Virgin of Guadalupe and accompanied by a vodka bottle, a plastic rosary, and a bloody knife. “Manuel Ocampo Ideological Mash-Up/Remix” showcase is bound to trigger conflicting emotions of attraction and repulsion in equal parts.

If All You Are Is A Nail Then Everything Looks Like A Hammer Version 1, 2019, Manuel Ocampo, Screenprint, relief cast paper, handpainted and screenprinted flags on canvas, 232 x 935 cm

Ocampo’s style: Aesthetics of punk culture laced with signature dark humour

Catch discussion-worthy artworks, taking inspiration from Angry Birds to Russian Constructivist grids, from Cuzco angels to Goyaesque devils; forming a caustic commentary on the art world and displaying the reactionary takes on iconic art-historical tropes. demonstrated through eloquent variations of old imagery with new approaches.

Ocampo uses all media available to explore and experiment with print and paper experimentations including lithography, screenprint, collagraphy, aquatint and etching. Questioning identity and versions of culture. Tellingly, inspired by modern popular communication tools like chat apps sees the artist incorporate digital imagery and icons in popular culture such as emojis for the first time as part of his chaotic and violent compositions.

The Grievance Studies Department, 2018, Screenprint, archival print collage and pulp painting on handmade paper, 120 x 107.5 cm

From his sprawling canvases of nearly ten metres, to his monochromatic etchings, raw works you will catch at Ocampo’s “Ideological Mash-Up/Remix” will engulf visitors in a heady collage of culturally loaded symbols from a fragmented time and space, embedded with the artist’s perspectives and personal narratives.

When: On till 22 June 2019
Where: STPI, 41 Robertson Quay, Singapore 238236
Hours:
Mondays – Fridays: 10am – 7pm
Saturdays: 9am – 6pm
stpi@stpi.com.sg