CHICAGO- An open secret of Philippine society is its excellent master artists. This reporter interviewed four of the best artists the Philippine Republic has ever produced—father and son Bueno and Eulalio Silva, Willi Red Buhay, and Fred DeAsis. All now reside in the United States. These Fil-Ams, or Filipino-Americans, help bridge the gap between Western and Asian contemporary art.
Bueno Silva Jr. finds steady work as one of the Philippines' most highly commissioned portrait artists. Born in the country's summer capitol of Baguio City in 1941 as the second child and oldest son in a family of 14, the artist began life fleeing the Japanese army during WWII. After the war he graduated from Notre Dame de Dadiangas high school, which is affiliated with Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana. There he met his future wife Patria.
Mr. Silva's a very personable man. He's 66 years "young," and lives on South Chicago's East Side—that section of the city that straddles the Indiana state line. A quiet and soft-spoken man, he's been an artist for almost as long as he could walk.
The self-taught artist paints colorful, classical, and upbeat work. His art and life reflect the national character of his native country: happy, unique, and optimistic. Mr. Silva's canvases are awash with bright reds, psychedelic oranges, and gentle blues that reflect his personal style.
Many of his contemporaries have tried to imitate him and failed. He considers himself an artist in the style of the Old Masters, but his personal heroes are the Impressionists Vincent Van Gogh, Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet, and Edouard Manet.
When viewing his work, one can imagine being a figure walking about on his canvases. Mr. Silva's paintings transport the viewer back in time to that so-called "Age of Innocence" when colors vibrated with life, when gay meant happy and cheerful, and when we saw less industrial ugliness.
Mr. Silva's work is a hold back to that time when an artist's work was more optimistic, before that dark time of World War I and its attendant slaughter was still in the not-so-distant future of human society. His work is vivacious in color and content.
His technique diverges from an earlier contemporary—the late great Fernando Armosolo—an icon of Philippine classical Romanticism. Mr. Armosolo's canvases are bejeweled with delicious brown voluptuaries in various pastoral poses—some nude and others clothed—working their magic on the wild male imagination of what beautiful women "should" look like, which are so unlike modern-day pencil-thin "beauties" who look more dead than alive.
Bueno Silva isn't another Armosolo—he's himself. Nor does he paint like his contemporary Nemi Miranda, with graphic yet beautiful slices of ordinary Asian life. Mr. Silva isn't a combination of these two great painters. His masterpieces are colorful. His subjects are religious figures, military generals, medical professionals, business moguls, and ordinary people. The artist captures their souls on canvas.
His unique style is a blend of Impressionist color, line, and symmetry, with more than a liberal dash of realism to rivet the minds of modern people. In the opinion of this writer, Mr. Silva is a modern rendition of 19th Century French and American Impressionism. His style is truly Impressionist yet his subject matter is purely late 20th to early 21st centuries.
Instead of a "carriage and four" we see that very modern and indispensable invention, the cellular telephone, laying open on a small table alongside some other very familiar contemporary contrivances as the subject of a still life.
In short, he blends the very best from the time-honored tradition of the Impressionists with all that is modern and upbeat. Nothing is wasted on his canvases. Like a writer using words, this artist gives his subjects sufficient breathing room. Recently Mr. Silva shared his thoughts with The Epoch Times.
Epoch Times: Who was the one person in your life who encouraged you to not only become an artist but urged you to become a great artist?
Bueno Silva Jr.: My parents. But my wife Patria has been my source of greatest inspiration. Epoch Times: What advice would you give to aspiring young artists? Bueno Silva Jr.: When creating art be sure that you always consider those who have gone before you and learn from them. Dedicate your life to your art! Put your whole mind, body and soul into your work.
Epoch Times: How do you think Fil-Am artists will influence art in the United States in the future?
Bueno Silva Jr.: Who can say but a sure sign is that, with so many Asians coming to America, in time we may see some serious changes in American art in terms of Asian influences."
Mr. Silva is now preparing a sold-out show in his native Philippines in October 2008. He can be reached at buenosilva820@yahoo.com
Fred C. Wilson III is a retired highway designer and public school teacher. He spends his retirement as a freelance writer, professional artist (ceramicist), lay Catholic minister, and income tax preparer. He would enjoy hearing from readers at: vamaxwell@yahoo.com.
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