In this Esquire Philippines exclusive, National Artist for Visual Arts Benedicto Cabrera talks about his new collaborations, the evolution of his practice, and, of course, the power of Sabel.
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CreativityTranscript
00:00The young artists in the Philippines now are doing well as compared to during my time we
00:06only have what three galleries that includes my gallery which is Indigo Gallery. My name is Ben
00:13I'm here with Esquire Philippines.
00:28All I've been doing collaboration with Abitare with particularly the Moi carpet and I'm very
00:37happy with what they've done. I also do metal works which is also arranged by Abitare and it's
00:45done in Italy using their metals but I'm always happy to collaborate. It's another approach to
00:54what I've been doing like painting and these are new medium which I like very much.
01:01As a Filipino artist I'm very conscious of our culture and that is what I want to project.
01:14I know there's a lot of influence from abroad and the latest. I started doing let's say
01:21Filipiniana, my larawan. It turned out to be also
01:26quite modern and not going back to the old style painting.
01:39My subject Sabelle is been going on which I've been using and she's a subject matter
01:47and in the end she became iconic because other artists was influenced by the image. They even did
01:56a musical on Sabelle because she represents the Filipina. Sabelle was what you call a bag lady.
02:05When I first saw her just across my window she was wearing this plastic around her and I started
02:12doing sketches and photography because she represents a lot of things in my art. She can
02:20be abstract, she can be oriental, she can be... that's the challenge that having one
02:28subject matter I can explore in a different way.
02:33My brother of mine is a very good artist. He taught me a lot. We gave exposure. We go out
02:40together. It's really my first exposure to the arts. Plus seeing him draw and paint it really
02:50give me encouragement to draw because I realized I can draw.
03:03Well after my divorce I decided to move to Baguio and it so happened that during that time we have
03:13people, friends and artists living there. Somehow we got together and create Baguio Arts Guild and
03:21that became an example of a community full of artists and doing things like installations,
03:29performance, paintings. That was fun. That was really good to start with. When I decided to
03:40move to the Philippines I decided to move to Baguio because I like the weather to begin with
03:45and Baguio is quite rich in terms of culturally the Cordillera which I think is underrated.
03:55When it comes to tribal art people think of Africa but we have such a rich culture
04:01in terms of having those bululs and other things.
04:16I get challenged when somebody like right now a gallery from Singapore and they do sculpture.
04:24They have a foundry and I was challenged to do sculpture this time. Things like that it just
04:30happened to me. I don't want to limit myself. I just like to explore new techniques. The only
04:37thing is I'm really bad with the new technology. The young artists in the Philippines now
04:50are doing well. As compared to during my time we only had what three galleries. That includes
04:58my gallery which is Indigo Gallery. You cannot just sell your paintings but now there are so
05:04many galleries even art brokers and so the young artists have all the chance to exhibit early
05:13and doing well.