Ronald Ventura goes into what the human eye sees and wants to see in Visual Defects, his latest one-man show at the West Gallery, SM Megamall. The works in oil on canvas and mixed media will be on view from July 25 to August 6.
Ventura has shown his mastery of the human figure in the past. This time, he concentrates on the powerful sense of sight, what is ordinarily seen out of what we take as true and natural. Yet, as Ventura will show through his work, many other factors affect how we perceive different phenomena. Nothing is taken at pure face value, but with it all the significance it plays in our lives. That is why the figures seem to be floating; Ventura only uses them to represent certain ideas, not exact copies of the human body. Others remain faceless. Ventura likes to erase any preconceived notions that viewers may have of a certain image, ideas that warp the images that we see and thus result into “visual defects”.
In “Artist as Subject,” Ventura looks at his craft, and how people may regard artists in general. He uses the image of van Gogh as an example, one of the most revered painters in history. Beside van Gogh is a younger artist, just as ready to take on the subjects that van Gogh made very famous. Ventura figures that anyone could dream big and one day succeed. He just needs to learn as much as he can and exhaust every possibility to achieve his goal. Ventura himself believes that painting is not only about distinguishing forms, lines and color, but also knowing why they are composed as such.
This includes turning to science if he thinks it will add more insight, as he does in using eye charts and other ophthalmology tools. In Ventura’s works are all products of research is just as open to exploring digital technology, constantly finding ways in which such advances can help him.
To Ventura, these are all tools he can use. Visual Defects presents a picture of how we choose to see the things around us. The “Blind Spots” series delves on religion as a very powerful instrument through which we form our principles and base our actions. Ventura merges religious icons along other influences such as alcohol and cigarettes, since they all affect our views, blinding or misleading these objects may be at times.
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