Alfredo Esquillo

Alfredo Esquillo paints tableaux of Philippine social life, attempting to uncover the almost surreal ironies of a culture convulsing with a myriad of contradictions. The artist’s emergence on the Philippine contemporary art scene is noted for his credible competence in illustration and the retooling talent in figuration. Esquillo’s painting style captures quite cogently the hybrid cultures of the Philippines today.

With Esquillo’s growing interest in cultural paradoxes, he begins to redefine the technology of photographic effect as well as the idiom of painting itself. As religious icons mingle with media contraptions, his art recognizes the appeal of both in the cultural tastes of Filipinos. The density and luster of the artist’s palette, however, belie the illusionary nature of the gifts that media and religion bear.

Esquillo majored in painting at University of Santo Thomas. Since then painting has remained the mainstay of his practice, even being incorporated into his more recent works that could best be described as assemblages or installations. In those recent works the artist has imagined the journey of the Filipino nation, from serial colonization and exploitation to a more hopeful future. His works examine individual, social, historical and communal identities, reimagining familiar representations to question how these viewpoints are constructed.