Pio Abad: Making a hit in UK art scene

A young Filipino is making a hit at the international art scene in Scotland. On June 22, Pio Emmanuel Razon Abad is graduating on top of his class at The Glasgow School of Art, one of Europe’s leading independent art schools. His father, Florencio “Butch" Abad, said Pio, 23 years old, is the only Filipino enrolled at the prestigious university in Scotland. “His thesis received an award of distinction and a travel grant of £1,000. To top it all, the exhibit of his work in all-- paintings and illustrations-- was sold out for which he earned the equivalent of Php1.5M--in just one day!" the proud father said in an e-mail to GMANews.TV. Pio is one of seven First Honors, equivalent to summa cum laude. He won the top award for his drawings, paintings and sculptures. This year’s GSA graduating class has the biggest batch of First Honors in four years, according to Pio’s father. “I think no other Pinoy has ever graduated here. His next target is to become the first Pinoy to enter the Royal College of Arts in London and take his Masters degree," said Butch in an e-mail from Scotland. “Mahirap nang pumasok, mahal pa (around 20,000 pound sterling, or P2M a year!) but really prestigious and excellent training," he said. Mercury Prize The Ateneo de Manila graduate was also recently selected as a winning finalist in the 2007 Nationwide Mercury Prize Art Competition, UK’s premier student art competition and exhibition. It offers art students from across UK the chance to enter a piece of their work which has been inspired by music. This year’s awards attracted over 2,000 entries from more than 130 universities and colleges. The competition was set up to highlight the link between art and music and promote the work of art students in the UK to a wide audience. The winner’s work will be used on the cover of the 2007 Nationwide Mercury Prize compilation CD, which is due for release in August. The 50 shortlisted entries were exhibited last month at a top London gallery. “Magma-manager na lang ako ng anak ko," the former congressman of the lone district of Batanes quipped. Butch and his wife Dina, outgoing representative of Batanes in Congress, along with their three other children, Julia Andrea, Luis Andres and Cecilia Paz (Patsy) joined Pio last Saturday at the opening of the 2007 Degree Show, an exhibit of art works of graduating students of The Glasgow School of Art. Professor Seona Reid, School of Fine Art director, said the Degree Show “is much more than an art exhibit – it is the culmination of a student’s time at art school. From here, emergent artists, designers, and architects will launch themselves into their future careers." Pio’s striking baroque-inspired work graces the exhibition invitations and posters, for which The Herald described him as “already hotly tipped." Excesses “Abad’s intricate drawings revel in and satirize excess, drawing on Baroque influences and the pomp of 18th century fashion, while a sculpture crafted from powdered wigs sits in a room lined with obscenely opulent hand-printed wallpaper," England’s major newspaper said of his work. The exhibit, which is open to the public until June 23, has been expected to draw some 20,000 visitors, including international galleries and fine art entrepreneurs keen to snap up the best emerging talent. Pio, along with other GSA graduates, has been in England’s newspapers in the past few days. Timesonline said Pio's "pompadour prints bring a touch of Versailles to parodies of political decadence." An issue of The Herald on June 11 even cited his father’s resignation from the Arroyo Cabinet in July 2005 and called for the President’s resignation over allegations of corruption. “Now Pio Abad, 23 is creating his own protest over the poison of power. His striking images borne out of the political upheaval in his homeland have been adopted for all the Glasgow School of Art’s promotional material for its Degree Show," the newspaper said. “Mr. Abad’s Dogeaters Discourse installation is made up of drawings, sculpture and wallprints exploring the gulf between the haves and the have-nots," it noted. Pio said he had “perversions" of the Marcos dictatorship in mind when he was doing his art pieces on exhibit. “You’re torn between vilifying Imelda Marcos and being fascinated with her perversions. She is still living in high life and she should be in jail." “I am interested in the corruptive function of excess, particularly its central role in constructing closed systems of meaning that proclaim the absoluteness of power and the obsolescence of societal values," Pio wrote on his profile at the Saatchi Gallery website. “Through drawing and sculpture, I seek to explore the relationships between excess and collapse, ornament and excrement, decadence and delusion, relationships that have defined the trajectories of history, from the consequences of Marie Antoinette’s rococo revelry to the anachronistic but all too appropriate presence of Louis XIV furniture in the private chambers of totalitarian governments, to our own schizophrenic relationship with luxury that oscillates between desire and disgust," he said. The art school GSA is internationally recognized as one of Britain’s foremost higher education institutions for the study and advancement of fine art, design and architecture. “We are a small, specialist and highly-focused international community of artists, designers and architects and, as a prospective student, visitor, research partners or supporter of the school, you will fund the GSA an immensely stimulating and creative place – a creative hothouse where new ideas are always encouraged and developed through teaching and research with is studio-based, face to face, professionally relevant and socially engaged," its website said. Some of GSA’s graduates were Turner Prize winners Simon Starling and Douglas Gordon; Beck’s Future’s winners Roddy Buchanan, Toby Paterson and Rosalind Nashashibi; design director of Jaguar Cars, Ian Callum; fashion designer Jonathan Saunders; and Stirling Prize nominees, architects Charlie Sutherland and Charley Hussey. Pio’s art works are on display at the perennial favorite – the Fine Art Department of Painting and Printmaking – that also offers a delicious mix from landscape and portrait painter Jack Frame, to the vibrant fantasy worlds of Ellen Macdonald, and string Rennaisance-style canvases from Claire McGee. Art in the family Pio’s inclination to the arts is not at all surprising. He is a nephew of Pacita Abad, a prolific and eminent artist who created at least 3,500 artworks and painted a 55-meter long Alkaff Bridge, which spanned the Singapore River, in her more than 30-year painting career. She developed trapunto painting, a technique of stitching and stuffing painted canvases to give them a three-dimensional sculptural effect. Pacita had over 40 exhibitions at museums and galleries in the U.S., Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin America. Pacita’s work is now in art collections in over 70 countries. Pacita died of cancer in December 2004. Another aunt, Vicky Abad, has also been into painting for years and has held exhibits of her works here and abroad. At a young age, Pio had already shown his interest in the arts. His sisters Julia and Patsy and brother Luis have their own artistic interests. Pio's father is also into the arts somehow. The pieces of wooden furniture at the Abad homes in Quezon City and Batanes were hand made by the former congressman, who also once served as education secretary (2004 – 2005) and agrarian reform secretary (under the Aquino administration). The Abad home in Quezon City is a work of art in itself. His mother, Dina, was dean of the Ateneo School of Government until she resigned when she ran for a seat in Congress in 2004. His youngest sister Patsy is the Bible bearer in the 200-peso bill. Pio belonged to Dulaang Sibol when he was in high school at the Ateneo. - Tita C. Valderama, GMANews.TV