Roy Veneracion …has taken a rather oblique
approach, switching between pure abstraction and
unabashed figuration or, as often, merging the two
idioms, with results that invite polarizing opinions.
Veneracion himself has been directly reproached
for this duality of artmaking. The artist recalls
being admonished – but gently, of course –
by at least two influential critics, namely, the
late Leonide Benesa and Alice Guillermo, both of
whom preferred that the artist focus his energies
on figuration.
Guillermo has been most impressed
by Veneracion’s figurative works, writing,
for instance: “The human figures have a vividness
of form and color, striking in expressing qualities,
and the work as a whole shows that Veneracion’s
artistic talent in figurative art of sociopolitical
meaning should not be lost but should rather be
pursued and developed to the full, for it is here,
and not so much in his textural abstracts, that
he will make his lasting mark on the country’s
art scene.”
Still another of Guillermo’s essays for the
National Museum Visual Arts Collection brought more
pressure on Veneracion to cast his lot on figuration:
“Some of the most striking paintings reflecting
the temper of the times came from a former abstractionist,
Roy Veneracion.” Has Guillermo already decided
that Veneracion will never do another abstraction?
