A US-based Thomasian physician mounted his homecoming art exhibit, “Renditions of Epicurean Delights,” featuring works delving into joy and the pursuit of pleasure, at Gallery Big in Mandaluyong.
Wilfrido Sy, a UST medicine alumnus, showcased over 40 works capturing moments of merriment through a fusion of 1980s Vegas aesthetics and cubism.
The exhibit was organized by his nephew, Gallery Big founder Jonathan Sy, and co-curated by Nate Rondina.
“For Epicurus, the greatest pursuit for any human is the pursuit of pleasure. But that can be problematic because what pleasure?” Rondina told the Varsitarian. “What we don’t want are extreme forms of pleasure such as addiction.”
“There are these kinds of pleasure which are the most basic, like enjoying the company of people, enjoying art, enjoying music,” he said. “What we celebrate in this exhibit are the types of delights that we should allow ourselves.”
After earning his medical degree from UST, Sy relocated to the US, spending much of his time in New York but also at times staying in Las Vegas, a city synonymous with casinos and indulgence. His artworks, Rondina said, serve as a visual diary of his experiences.
“Instead of keeping a diary with words, he kept a diary of the images,” the co-curator said.
Sy initially worked with acrylic and oil paints but switched to colored markers, pens, oil pastels, and colored pencils after developing an allergy to turpentine, a solvent used to thin oil-based paints.
One of the artworks he displayed was “Poker Time, Phonar Wins Suit,” a 16.5x 14-in mixed media piece depicting gamblers at a poker table, incorporating a newspaper clipping of a 1985 New York Times article, “Patent suit is won by Fonar.”
The collection also draws inspiration from the Playboy magazine, which, combined with Sy’s feministic approach, explains the prevalence of cubist depictions of women.
Among them is “Picasso Contra Mattise,” a 14×16.5-in. colored pen on paper piece and “Maroon Chair,” a 24×18-in. pastel on paper.
“It reflects his fascination for Picasso. For him, Picasso is the best artist of the last century,” Rondina said. “If you see, it’s almost an homage to the style of Picasso.”
Sy’s appreciation for women extends to “After Modigliani,” 24×8-in. pastel on paper portraying a naked blond woman in a minimalist form.
“To reduce the human form into the most basic of elements, seems infantile, seems like a juvenile errand, but it’s not, it actually takes a lot of skill, a lot of temperament to reduce it into its most basic form,” Rondina said.
While most of the artworks are a nod to Vegas and its indulgent culture, Sy shifted gears it “Italian Dwelling,” a 13.5×17-in. pastel drawing inspired by his travels in Europe, serving as the lone landscape in the exhibit.
“The theme of the paintings is always happy,” Sy told the Varsitarian.
The “Renditions of Epicurean Delights” exhibit ran from Jan. 6 to Feb. 24.
