Realities

Ronald Ventura is a key figure in the South East Asia’s contemporary art scene. The artist combines art historical references with pop elements coming from the underground scene, adding different layers and suggesting different readings to his paintings. The result are images familiar yet disturbing, which invite the viewers to an attentive contemplation and stimulate their curiosity.” In the last few years he has attracted the attention and the interest of the international public and his works have been exhibited in museums and venues worldwide, including the Nanjing Biennale in 2010, the Prague Biennale in 2009 and the NUS Museum of Singapore in 2008. The artist epitomizes and takes to a universal level the complex and contradictory system of cultural, emotional and symbolic values characterizing Philippino contemporary society. The artist create a series of ambitious works, which refl ect upon the relationship between the First World and the periphery, by playing on the tensions between the desire and promises of globalization on one hand and the impossibility to fully adhere to it on the other, both for the lack of means and for an attachment to traditional values and cultural identity.