Fire Starter - Marco Yuchengco Santos Leaves Corporate World To Be An Artist at 53

6/24/23, 6:22 PM Fire starter: Marco Yuchengco Santos leaves corporate world to be an artist at 53 | Philstar.
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6/24/23, 6:22 PM Fire starter: Marco Yuchengco Santos leaves corporate world to be an artist at 53 | Philstar.com
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ARTS AND CULTURE
Fire starter: Marco

YuchengcoSPORTS Santos leaves LIFESTYLE OTHER SECTIONS
ENTERTAINMENT
corporate
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worldFASHION
to be
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BUSINESS LIFE
an FOOD HEALTH
ARTS AND CULTURE
AND BEAUTY
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AND FAMILY
artist at 53 ON THE RADAR PETS TRAVEL
Deni Rose M. Afinidad-Bernardo - Philstar.com

June 19, 2023 | 12:20pm
Marco Yuchengco Santos leaves corporate …
MANILA, Philippines — At 50, many people are

thinking about retirement: what else is unchecked on
the bucket list, the best island paradise to settle in as
a beach bum.
The road to retirement seems easy for Marco

Yuchengco Santos — with his prominent family name,
a beautiful family of his own, technology companies to
run, including as innovator in their family-owned
Mapua University, and as the founder of one of the
largest free Internet Service Providers, EDSAMail, as
among his legacies — what more could he ask for in
life, right?
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But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit a few years back,
something also started to spark within Marco and now
it fully consumes him — his passion to become an
artist. SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT LIFESTYLE OTHER SECTIONS
JoseCORONATION MISSstarted
Rizal might have UNIVERSE 2022 a ARTS
carving AND
statue atCULTURE
14 THE BUDGETARIAN
while Mozart wrote his first composition at ageONfive,
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but for Marco, who is in his 50s, there were no school
notebook doodles, no artist in the family to look up to,
or childhood frustration to become an artist,
whatsoever.
“I was an entrepreneur and a business person, and

then the pandemic happened,” he told Philstar.com in
an exclusive interview. He said he, too, was surprised
that he is now an artist and is being interviewed for art
and not for business or tech.
Yes, his family is the eponymous owner of a Makati

museum, but Marco is the only one in the family who
has become an artist and he himself was a math
wizard all his life — a Management Engineering degree
holder from Ateneo de Manila University, an engineer
who stared more at numbers than on paintings.
“But I always knew I was always out of the box

creatively,” he enthused, yet still being able to apply his
background in math and engineering in art, only now
he translates formulas into visual patterns.
‘God’s gift during the pandemic’
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Pieces from MYSAN's "Persistence of Passion,' his first

solo show on view from June 15 to July 1 in J Studio, La
Fuerza Compound, Chino Roces Ave., Makati City.
Philstar.com/EC Toledo
It was during the pandemic though that Marco's

artistic right side of the brain began to overpower the
analytical left side — he began picking up used bottles
and a blowtorch — and from these common
household stuff came out masterpieces that friends
and family instantaneously regaled as the works of an
artist.
“During that time, I would also collect gin. My

daughter’s friends finished all my gin and so the
bottles I felt were sayang, so I painted them and
burned them. Posted it on Facebook and people called
me an artist,” Marco recalled. “It’s a gift from God
during the pandemic.”
Not everyone was pleased, however. A comment on

his Facebook post tried to toast Marco. But like a
phoenix rising from the ashes, from there, the artist
MYSAN, from his initials, was born.
“One of the people said there maybe it was just hobby,

it challenged me. So I said, okay, I’m going to do this
full-time I got glass And with no background in art
full-time, I got glass. And with no background in art
whatsoever… My canvas was blank, I disrupt the Subscribe
canvas, and then I follow it. For example, I burned the

glass, when it cracks, I would follow the cracks, paint
it, and then a new image comes out in front. It’s all
experiment… I pretty much destroy the mediums and
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make them art.” MISS UNIVERSE 2022 ARTS AND CULTURE THE BUDGETARIAN
Since then, his trial-and-error with burning different
materials like acrylic paint, tempered glass, and about
a thousand bottles gave birth to a first joint exhibition.
With artistic passion in him exploding like
spontaneous combustion, MYSAN churned out more
opuses, this time, rendered on wood. After six months
or so, the result is the 12-piece exhibition “Persistence
of Passion,” his first-ever solo show.
“Why did I decide to come up (with a show) on my

own? To see how much of myself I need to be
discovered or I want to discover the best part of me,”
he said.
Playing with fire
Pieces from MYSAN's "Persistence of Passion ' his first

Pieces from MYSAN s Persistence of Passion, his first
Fuerza Compound, Chino Roces Ave., Makati City. Subscribe

“Plywood never looked this good,” you would gasp to
yourself as large panels of burned wood artworks
border three corners of J Studio in La Fuerza
Compound, Chino Roces Avenue, Makati City, ON
where
“Persistence of Passion” is on view until July 1.
“It’s just regular plywood,” MYSAN said of his chosen

medium other than fire at the exhibit. “But since the
passion is overflowing, it becomes something else.”
While the sight of burns usually causes alarm or

stress, at “Persistence of Passion,” it is even a
meditative experience — you can sit quietly at the
center and picture yourself in a bed with these opuses
covering your house’s walls — and since the artworks
are made with only two natural materials, wood and
fire, it is the best way to bring the outdoors in and
immerse yourself in these byproducts of the
harmonious unity between nature and human
ingenuity.
Plywood might be usually discouraged as a

construction material for being flammable, but
MYSAN’s “Persistence of Passion” explores plywood’s
flammability — its weakness — as its strength. Playing
with varying heat temperatures and intensities,
MYSAN successfully imprinted abstractions and
shapes in different shades to achieve a chiaroscuro
effect on plywood that jumps off from the frames —
reminiscent of Indigenous Pintados or Kalinga tattoos
on brown Filipino skin.
Like in tattooing, burning wood requires a lot of control Subscribe
and a precise command over the ink, which in

MYSAN’s case, is fire, or else, it’s fire, being a strong
and unpredictable force of nature, that would
dominate. So more than just presenting what MYSAN
could do as an artist, “Persistence of Passion” also
shows how he tames and conquers fire. ON THE RADAR PETS TRAVEL
“I wanted to show that fire is an amazing element, but

people know fire as something that destroys things. I
use fire to add value, to add beauty to things.
Hopefully, that’s what it shows, that fire is actually a
tool you can use for burning or for recreating. And art
is about destroying and recreating, destroying and
recreating,” he said on how an artist could choose to
use fire either as an agent for good or not.
Pieces from MYSAN's "Persistence of Passion,' his first

Fuerza Compound, Chino Roces Ave., Makati City.
As a Rooster, fire could also be in his personality.
“I’ l i i h fi ll h i ” h j k d ddi h
“I’m playing with fire all the time,” he joked, adding that
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he has a hothead, which is usually expected of any
company boss.

Showing an actual burn he has had in his art process,
MYSAN professed the real danger he faces in using
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blowtorches. MISS UNIVERSE 2022 ARTS AND CULTURE THE BUDGETARIAN
“You can get burned, literally. When you burn
something, it’s pretty hard to burn it too much. It’s like
cooking steak — ‘pag sobrang sunog, pangit, so you
just kind of learn,” said the artist, who really doesn’t
cook steak.
The risks and element of danger, if anything, even

make the art form more enjoyable for MYSAN,
although he does his works in an open-air garden for
safety.
“I’m a clumsy person, anyway, I just kept on destroying

things,” he said on how he reacted when he was
burned in an arm.
“But for me, everything is art. Because once you start

playing up things in nature, for me, that’s art… When
you turn something into a new thing no one has ever
seen, that’s art for me,” he said.
Like in “The Flash” that shows how a person’s

brokenness makes him one-of-a-kind, in art, a
medium’s imperfections also make the artwork more
desirable, said MYSAN.
“The broken ones are what people like more because

they’re unique. If it’s ayos, corny. ‘Pag basag, they like,”
he observed, adding that acrylic is his most favorite
thing to burn at the moment because it deforms easily.

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“Every day, you just focus on what you like and you
actually become better at doing it,” he advised aspiring
artists like him.
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When MISS UNIVERSE
asked if he would 2022 in ARTS
have a show their AND CULTURE
family- THE BUDGETARIAN
owned Yuchengco Museum, he quipped, “Bawal
ON ata
pamilya d’un!”
“Right now, I’m at the stage of my artist career that it

looks nice palang. I’m not bullshitting. Now, it looks
nice, it looks good, okay. But maybe I’d like to start
communicating a message in my next (show),
hopefully… For now, it’s (abstract), it’s different, it’s
what excites my heart.”
Spectators checking out some pieces from MYSAN's

"Persistence of Passion,' his first solo show on view from
June 15 to July 1 in J Studio, La Fuerza Compound, Chino
Roces Ave., Makati City.
Although MYSAN considers himself still “a work in

progress,” with the fantastic reception to his shows, he
anticipates more upcoming exhibits because just like
anticipates more upcoming exhibits because just like
his solo show’s title, the artistic passion in MYSAN Subscribe
runs like wildfire.
“I’m excited to be full-time

HOME at 53. So, I’ll just
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he declared. SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT LIFESTYLE OTHER SECTIONS

“The kids are old enough. We have a family business
and they’re working out on their own. My wife and I are
at home and I just paint,” said MYSAN, who is happy
that his family is happy and supportive in fueling his
flame.
“It has no destination. It’s a journey. I don’t really care

what people say, I just want to express myself vividly
or in a way that I would always be remembered.”
MYSAN's “Persistence of Passion” is on view from

June 15 to July 1 in J Studio, La Fuerza Compound,
Chino Roces Ave., Makati City.
RELATED: ‘Persistence of Passion’: Marco Santos

shows fire’s transformative power in new exhibit
ART EXHIBIT MARCO SANTOS
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6/24/23, 6:22 PM Fire starter: Marco Yuchengco Santos leaves corporate world to be an artist at 53 | Philstar.

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