HEROES, SAINTS AND ORDINARY MORALITY

HEROES, SAINTS AND ORDINARY MORALITY
By Dave Locke, Jr.


Visual artist JCrisanto Martinez probes into the concept of religious creeds and presents them into a series of three exhibitions, engaging his viewers into a creative space of visual challenge and an abstracted appreciation of tangible sculptural elements. In its grand idea, the three anthologies are presented in a sequential trinity of shows, first mounted in a commercially-ran gallery, a museum and finally at an alternative art space, the artworks evolved from engraved images into a stronger, more evident approach of sculptured godmakers, and finally judging his shocking creations as unqualified or perhaps “failed” saints. With his enormous collection of bizarrely shaped sculptures, Martinez aims not to provide a grotesque sense of imagery towards Catholicism or more generally religion itself, but in actuality all he provides is a challenge to his audience, a confrontation to those who are brave enough to cross the barrier between religious norms and the mysterious black hole of nonconformity. It’s all about a liberation of perspectives, to determine if the unknown things we actually worship are worth the blood, devotion and sacrifice that we often shower them with.

Graven Images is a collected assemblage of the seven deadly sins. This is actually Jcrisanto Martinez’ initial venture into figuration, presenting a beautiful assemblage of images depicting those of the seven deadly sins, as it was taken from the bible. The exhibition is simply all about the irony of man, since the artist has observed that we actually worship these given sins. Namely, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride, sloth and wrath. According to the artist, we are what these sins represent. This may briefly connote to the eternal cliché: “To err is to human”, since man is basically in a fire-butter situation when it comes down to sin. And after all, sin is but a human error. Or this is what the modern dogmatic religions quote perhaps. For in its vain struggle of forever sealing man in a casket of norms, these “Godmakers” would do everything to take man away from its own true nature, and label such pleasures as taboos or violations to the mandates of a God that hardly ceases to exist. With a mix of resin, gold-plated brass, carved plate and old wood panels rendered with acrylic and enamel paint, Martinez creates a delicate, masterful molding of tangible gods worshipped by men of flesh and weakness. More interestingly, the artist has employed the usage of Spanish-Latin titles, creating a certain strong feeling that reminds us of the Spanish colonizations, where Catholicism was first introduced here in the Philippines, and the time when Priests were Gods. Thus the artist gave birth to such dreadful, scandalous titles: Nuestra Señora de Invidia (Envy), Nuestra Señora de Gula (Gluttony), Nuestra Señora de Avaritia (Greed), Nuestra Señora de Fornicatia (Lust), Nuestra Señora de Superbia (Pride), Nuestra Señora de Socordia (Sloth), and Nuestra Señora de Ira (Wrath). With these surreal depictions, JCrisanto Martinez represents a confrontation to popular Filipino iconography. The artist plays god by naming his creations after saints, reminding us of man’s tendency gradually fall from grace and warns us to be not mislead by false idols and doctrines made by man himself.

The Godmakers is a rendition of man’s hypocrisy against himself, and his dreaded, continued worship to false gods and icons made the same creatures of flesh that he is. This time his images are evidently anthropomorphic and crowned so as to establish their separate kingdoms of dominion. At one brief point of view, the audience could almost consider the sculptures with a mythological resemblance. These recent creations focus on the concept of demigods, deities that we idolize and give extreme honor to. We worship their feet, we cite endless mantras and even name our children after them. As valued servants, they suck not only our faith, but also our money as well, even our ability to love and of course, the purest expression of freedom itself. It acts like a wretched, monstrous black hole that consumes the core of our souls towards a dogmatic act that people call Christianity. It was originally (or so to say) designed to give glory to life itself, but in the end, we just realize that it does the exact opposite. It devours life, and destroys it to the smallest available particle. Like black, fat leeches, these faith-induced monsters are forever above our heads, like false, corrupted halos, singing a silent dirge, telling us what to do, and what not to do. But then again, we are not in the position to blame because they did not create themselves. They did not install those golden tiaras on their heads. They never called themselves God. We did, and has continue to do so since time immemorial.

JCrisanto Martinez ends his trilogy with Unqualified Saints, as he continues to traverse a corrupted world of divine distortions and the misdirection of faith and worship itself. The final installment is a cumulative iconographic exposition that showcases mixed media sculptures defining the thin line between a genuine doctrine and idolatry. Remaining faithful to his mastered, consistent usage of materials for his sculptures, the artist solidifies his three shows into one figurative assemblage of a single concept: false worship, and the recurring act of events that follow after it. he fashions his gods into tangible representations, perhaps, a twisted chimera version of how the church has shaped and formed its own saints. The concluding piece in this exhibition is “Risen”, a small piece of mixed media assemblage on burlap featuring an antique cross which bears the imprints of one previously nailed on it. The message implied actually has a thunderous inference to the artist’s basic assertion, that the one to rely faith upon has now risen and is unseen. This is indeed a perfect requiem for his final installment in this divine trilogy, basically asserting that it is all not just a concept of profanity and blasphemy directed against other religions. It is not just a series of grievances and utter criticisms, but in fact, in its summation, it is all but an intellectual concept that aims to challenge the minds of its viewers to think twice, and speculate the deeper premises of worship and divination.