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Monday, January 09, 2006
Northern Star
By Ritchie Landis Doner Quijano
WHO would have thought that a soft-spoken lad from Bantayan island would become one of the most sought-after local portraitists? The bulk of his commissioned work are figural paintings.
As a youngster in his hometown, he showed innate skill and early promise. And that promise proved true when in 1978, at the tender age of 11, he won first prize in an on-the-spot painting contest. Painter Gary Carabio grew up in a family of skilled artists and craftsmen. His great-great grandfather was a sculptor who participated in church-building, making stone carvings for parishes in Bantayan.
A generation after, Gary’s great grandfather Severino “Binoy” Carabio did figure sculptures of saints. Most of Binoy’s statuaries can be seen today inside ancestral houses that are taken out only during fiestas and paraded on carrozas for the procession. Art certainly runs in the blood of the Carabio family tree.
Gary inherited his forefathers’ adroitness as he is equally skillful in the art of painting and carving. In his brush strokes we see a finely crafted style of hyper-realism. These are paintings done in strict life-like detail. He entered the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts in 1986.
There he made record winnings in the annual Jose Joya Awards. He won consistently for three consecutive years, 1988, 1989 and 1990 respectively, garnering a total of five first places in the categories of Representational, Non-Objective and Figurative Abstraction. After finishing school in 1990, he staged his first solo show the following year. Entitled Bantayan, it was shown at the Casa Gorordo museum.
The exhibit was a tribute to the island of his origin. Working full-time, he confessed that for a decade (1991-2000) he was temporarily out of circulation because orders for his paintings took all of his time. Gary announced that he has made a booking for his coming second one-man exhibit at the SM art center in September of next year. Currently he’s an active member of Binhi, a group of Christian artists.
Highly endowed with the gift of creativity and the cultural life of Bantayan, his paintings today are still reflective of the island genre, even though for some years now he has based himself in the urban landscape of the city.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (January 9, 2006 issue)
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