For “Nostalgic Reflections”, visual artist Vic Bachoco explores rural living in the Philippine countryside. These places stimulate the artist’s senses and feed his never-ending fascination for painting complex patterns, textural surfaces, and dramatic plays of light and color. Once ubiquitous in the Philippine landscape and central to the economy, some of the livelihoods portrayed are now relics of another time. There is in these paintings evidence of a physical way of labor, and perhaps some nostalgia for an era which has largely slipped away.
The viewer is lured through serene landscapes of streams and rivers, and fishermen going about their daily catch. Other paintings carry the viewer through streets and structures in the town, with horse-drawn carriages as transportation. Human presence is purposefully absent in some paintings, as the artist wants the viewer to find their surrogate in nature and thereby connect more deeply with the environment.
With his paintings, Vic Bachoco tries to capture the nearness and overwhelming presence of nature in local sceneries at its most beautiful and memorable way. Bachoco’s paintings strive to capture the mood and atmosphere of a familiar place and subject, combining the magic of watercolor with reverence for the principles of design to create works of sophisticated simplicity.
Vic Bachoco was born in Iloilo in 1952. He studied architectural and mechanical drafting at the Iloilo School of Arts and Trades. In 1973, he worked as a trainee artist for a bottling company in Iloilo. He later moved to Manila to work in publishing as visual artist before he landed a Senior Artist position at of Manila’s more prestigious advertising firms. These jobs, though focused mainly on commercial art, finessed Vic’s native gift for color, composition, and draftsmanship.
“Nostalgic Reflections” by Vic Bachoco will be on view from January 23 to February 1. The gallery is located on the 3rd level of The Podium, ADB Avenue, Ortigas Center, Mandaluyong City.
