Neil Pasilan is a self-taught artist who hails from Bacolod City. He started making art as a young man, when he would spend his days sculpting figures out of discarded clay. He would have daily “exhibits” with his neighbor, with only themselves as their viewers and grandmothers yelling in the background. This love for art, as well as its more existential offerings, is deeply rooted in the artist who moved to Manila and survived by selling crafts and products that he would make by hand. Twenty years later, Pasilan focuses on painting and mixed media works, but still cannot seem to exorcise his affinity for terra cotta.
Along the Way is a show of imagery that the artist comes across as he moves around the city. It is composed of eight mixed media paintings and five sculptures rooted in terra cotta. Pasilan’s paintings are made in his signature naïve style of rough figures with guised faces. Their surroundings vary as he shows familiar city scenes interspersed with landscapes from his own memory.
Talking to Pasilan, one can get a glimpse of what he has gone through in life and his varied experiences with art. From exhibiting for kicks as a young man to joining the circus, so to speak, and moving to the big city, and then finally, to where he is today, effervescent as ever and finally having made a name for himself in the professional art community. With all of these changes and developments, Pasilan maintains the honesty and sincerity of his work. His growth has brought him to a place that allows him to reflect on his surroundings as well as on what is truly important to him. Spiritual and hopeful existential themes are important to Pasilan as he believes that it is a way for him to give back to art and his way of assigning value to his work. The artist is a social realist at his core, but one who relies on introspection and his own skills and personal contributions to make change.
Along The Way exhibit will run until Feb. 15 at the Bulwagang Carlos V. Francisco (Little Theater Lobby) at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Pasilan will hold an Artist Talk on Jan. 15 at 4 p.m.