Name: Silvestre L.

Valle IV Section: Crownknot

Date: 2/16/21 Score:

Filipino Contemporary Artwork

Ronald Ventura (1973-present)

Ventura is a contemporary artist from Manila, with a Bachelor’s degree of Fine

Arts in Painting from the University of Santo Tomas. He initially taught in the same
school after graduating but found his true calling as a visual artist after his first
solo exhibition at the Drawing Room in Makati in 2000. Ventura’s work is known
to consist of multiple layers, using imagery that focuses on the human form. His
paintings are a dramatic union of comic sketches, reality, and graffiti. He draws
inspiration from Asian mythology, Catholicism, science fiction and comic book
characters. He is known to have the highest selling work in the history of the
Southeast Asian art market: his painting Gray ground sold for a whopping $1.1
million USD at an auction in Sotheby’s Hong Kong.
Ronald Ventura is a contemporary Filipino artist known for his dynamic melding of
realism, cartoons, and graffiti. Portraying scenes of chaotic disarray, Ventura culls
from science fiction, Western history, Asian mythology, Catholicism, and popular
comic book characters, in producing his work.
Ronald Ventura is a leading figure in South-East Asian contemporary art. His
intricately layered paintings and multimedia artworks intertwine historically laden
symbols with pop culture signifiers, creating richly imaginative compositions that
act as a metaphor for the multifaceted national identity of the Philippines.