JUN Impas’ studio in Barangay Guadalupe is air-conditioned, with one glass wall to let natural light filter in. He is at work on a large canvas depicting a scene from the Iloilo Dinagyang festival. It is a commissioned work and reflects his stature as an artist in the Philippine scene, not just in Cebu.
Impas said his real name is Florentino and that he was born to a poor family—his father, a fisherman, and his mother, a plain housewife. He had to support himself to be able to finish high school. He was an artist even then, and supported himself by painting movie billboards.
At age 22, in 1992, he came to Cebu City and opened a small sign shop. He started to print T-shirts, did signboards and billboards, as well as souvenir items. But he was always drawn to his art. He wanted to concentrate on it and finally decided to paint full time in 1997. His shop clients kept calling him, though, and so he accepted jobs but had someone else do the final production of items, which gave him time to devote to his paintings.
He joined group art exhibits in Cebu. Unfortunately, no one seemed to mind his paintings. He felt frustrated and one day, in an afternoon when the Good Shepherd Church was empty, he cried, literally, his frustration to God. He was shouting, asking God what His plan for Jun Impas was. How was he going to feed his family? After crying his heart out, instead of being frustrated, he calmed down. In that calmness, he sensed that perhaps people did not accept his work because there was something lacking in them and so he had to learn more.
In his words: “I bought books on artists and studied them. I realized they also experienced what I did. At the next exhibit, I exhibited a portrait of my wife. A businessman liked what he saw and asked me to paint a portrait of his family. I have since done most of them, from the first to the third generation. In one of their parties, former Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal saw the portraits and liked what he saw. The master of the house sensed that the Cardinal would also like to have his portrait painted. And so they commissioned me to do so.”
In 2008, Impas had a one-man show in Manila: Portraits and Figures. That was when he started to accept commissioned works in Manila. He has done the other Philippine cardinals: Cardinal Luis Tagle, Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales and Cardinal Orlando Quevedo. He has even painted the portrait of a Vatican cardinal, Cardinal Fernando Feloni, for which he was sent to the Vatican.
Of his art, Impas said: “My only happiness is that my children are well placed, well educated. I did not finish my studies but I was given a talent which has provided for them.” Shyly he added, “I am now also going to school. I’m studying at the University of Santo Tomas. The priests there, noticing my talent and my lack of a college degree, decided to give me a scholarship. It is a home study kind of scholarship. I am given the semester’s work and I do my studying at home. I am practically in Manila every week and the good priests have reserved a room for me there. But I prefer to stay at my schooling children’s condominium. I am now a sophomore.”
Impas said he started to paint in watercolor, then pastel, then charcoal. Now he focuses on oil. He is doing a lot of portraits because these are all commissioned works. But when he exhibits—and he urges Cebuano artists to go to Manila to have one-man exhibits, if only for the exposure that such a show gives—he exhibits works that he likes and enjoys doing, not commissioned works. In June, he will exhibit his Manobo series in Gallery Anna in SM Megamall, Mandaluyong City. He looks forward to January 2017 when he will have an exhibit in the Ayala museum, titled Panata, a monumental work the subject of which will be the Quiapo feast of the Nazarene. It will be only one painting, about eight feet by twelve feet.
Impas said he works early, but the earlier hours of the day are devoted to his pets: dogs, cats, fishes (koi and arowana). His studio is at the second level of his house. It’s a beautiful, well-furnished house that says Jun Impas has truly arrived as an artist in the Philippines.