Ronald Ventura

            Ronald Ventura is a modern Filipino artist whose work combines realism, cartoons, and graffiti in a dynamic way. Ventura draws inspiration from science fiction, Western history, Asian mythology, Catholicism, and popular comic book characters to create scenes of chaotic disorder. Ronald Ventura, who was born in 1973 in Manila, Philippines, and continues to live and create there, is one of Southeast Asia's most recognized painters of his age. His paintings and sculptures are currently among the most identifiable images of modern art in Southeast Asia, thanks to their distinctive mixes of figurative elements. His work is layered with imagery and styles that range from hyperrealism to cartoons and graffiti. In his art, Ventura uses the layering process as a metaphor for the Philippines' varied national identity. The deep impacts of successive occupying forces – Spain, Japan, and the United States – as well as the underlying indigenous culture, have resulted in a complicated and at times unsettling sense of identity over the years. Ventura delves into this historical and psychological phenomenon through a conversation of images that evoke East and West, high and low, ancient and young, as seen in allusions to Old Master paintings or Japanese and American cartoons, for example. He calls our attention to the "second skin" of cultural signifiers that everyone takes about with them, even if they aren't aware of it. Skin, according to Ventura, is an expressive surface that may be tattooed on, hidden behind layers of artwork, or erupting forth to expose an inner world of imagination and struggle.

            He was known for his contemporary artwork, specifically his installation, sculpture, and his paintings. Most of the paintings, if you searched them up, is untitled or does not have a name. Moreover, he also has paintings that have names on them, like this “Eyeland” that he made in 2018, “HUMAN STUDY 006” last 2019, and more. As we observed his works of him, we noticed that most of them are portraits with a touch of contemporary style, like on his work “Eastern Universe” in 2018 which is a portrait of a girl with a universe and a rabbit with a carrot on it.

            His outstanding works also show the different elements and principles of contemporary arts namely: 

  1.  Hybridity, because he shows on his artworks through the blending of new or unusual materials with traditional mediums. That is shown in his untitled work on 2019, the head part of the man has a lot of unusual materials in his head, and most of it is unrecognizable, on “HUMAN STUDY 006” last 2019, it clearly said that it is a human study however the subject in the painting does not look like one, and to many more.

  2. Perspective. Because he works with the real space surrounding the artwork itself. It also plays a role in the way the viewer looks at the artwork or even the way the work is perceived.

  3. Finally, Destruction. It is self-explanatory because he uses methods to show damage in or to their artwork.

HUMAN STUDY 006 (2019)


Eyeland (2018)


untitled (2019)


Eastern Universe (2019)


untitled (2019)



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