Malang celebrates his 81st birthday with an exhibit of 100 drawings from his personal collection and the book launching of Malang Drawings, chronicling his unique approach to drawing and how it helped him with his art-making over the years. Malang Drawings will be on view at the Art Center in SM Megamall beginning January 23 and through February 8. The works on exhibit will not be on sale, and instead focus on the rich and productive genius that is Malang. Juan Gatbonton writes in Malang Drawings, “Drawing is Malang’s way of note-taking. It is his way of talking to himself. Seated at a coffee table, he would draw on the napkins. Waiting out an appointment with his doctor, he would draw on a handy prescription pad. Dropping in at my office, he would draw on the back pages of manuscripts.” Thus, it is no surprise how Malang has steadily kept his art portfolio filled with so many ideas. Almost every line, nuance, and shade is recorded for future compositions. Malang sees his sketchbooks as his most intimate secret weapon, “containing even my imperfect attempts.” His notebooks are not just tallies of personal affairs, but also include random sketches of subjects that caught his eye on that particular day-cityscapes or figures that would soon look familiar because they would find their way onto signed canvases. Gatbonton recalls when he and Malang were still colleagues at the Chronicle: “Looking out on the ruins of Intramuros from our third-floor office, he would draw the barung-barong mushrooming on the gutted Ayuntamiento, Spanish Manila’s once-elegant municipal council hall. Between deadlines, when work was slack, he prowled the Aduana bank of the Pasig River, drawing the boats and launches beached there.” Malang kept drawing on a daily basis for four decades, using varied materials, from gouache to watercolor, from acrylic to ink, from charcoal to crayons. The exhibit and the companion book, which is designed by his grandson, Luis Santos, is a testament to Malang’s unwavering diligence and inspired imagination.
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