Ronald Ventura

Ronald Ventura is the most famous and successful Filipino contemporary artist known primarily for his multilayered works that stands for the miscellaneous national, historical, cultural and religious identity of the Philippines. Featuring a wide and complex diversity of styles, forms and imagery, in his oeuvre one can find aspects of graffiti, cartoons, hyperrealism, surrealism, and pop art. His practice is constantly evolving and he manages to employ his diverse creativity in his highly recognizable work.

Ronald Ventura was born in 1973 in the city of Manila, Philippines. He studied painting at the University of Santo Tomas in 1993, where he worked after graduation as an Art instructor for a while. For the first time in 2000, he had his two solo painting shows. The first one was named and it happened at the Drawing Room in Makati City in the Philippines, and the other was called , held at the West Gallery Megamall in Mandaluyong City. Since then he started gaining recognition that manifested itself in the next awards: the Artist of the Year prize from Art Manila in 2001, and in 2005, he was awarded the important Ateneo Art Gallery from the Studio Residency Grant in Sydney, Australia, for his work The Human Study series. His first exhibition in the US, Metaphysics of Skin, was held in 2009 at Tyler Rollins Fine Art Gallery. Today, he is one of the highest selling artists from the Southeastern Asia. In 2011, his canvas was sold for the US $1.1 million at Sotheby's Contemporary Southeast Asian Painting auction in Hong Kong.

This Asian artist sees his art as a big visual sandwich of numerous layers and influences. First of all, it represents the specific situation of the Asian Filipino culture which is a particular fusion of the native culture and the local heritage and landscapes, and on the other hand the profound influence of the occupying cultures of the United States, Japan, and Spain. Those complex cross-cultural relationships bring a specific unease and Ventura seeks to expose all the phenomena through the dialogue of imagery from the East and the West. Thus, Ronald Ventura is interested in the concepts of borders, transgression, fusions, and struggles. The artist is interested in the idea of "second skin" because it is an expressive surface for all these cultural signifiers, whether it is written over with tattoos, revealed or concealed. He also tries to broaden the specter of his inspirations, using the global possibilities of the Internet and traveling. In that way, Ventura's paintings are a constant fusion of experienced cultures, beyond his direct control or will.

Ronald Ventura's art and the aesthetic of his works are in accordance with the content in which he is interested. He appropriates pop culture and its fictional iconography, commercial images, and cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse, Angry Bird, or Hello Kitty and entangles them with other fantastic creatures and animals. Tensions, vivid snarls and overlapping of hyperrealist images on his canvas depict strong dynamics, contradictions, and conflicts. The artist also manages to archive these aesthetic qualities in various sculptures he does, mixing the high and low, beautiful and ugly, vivid and pale, joy and sorrow.