{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":61653,"auction_id":209,"set_id":242,"lot_number":"75","artist":"Manuel Ocampo (b. 1965)","title":"Peace Dove Monument","starting_price":600000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 2003 (verso)","medium":"oil on canvas","size":"60\" x 48\" (152 cm x 122 cm)","property":null,"coa":null,"provenance":"Private collection, London","exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"There is a dichotomy in how the works of Manuel Ocampo are viewed. With an oeuvre undeniably rife with symbolism, Ocampo is notable for his adamant insistence that there is “no reading to his paintings and works of other medium.” However, with such prolific historical, religious, and political references overflowing in his work, it is definitely hard not to find meaning within his message.<br/><br/>Certainly, Ocampo himself is not averse to the meaningmaking found in his works. Indeed, to understand an Ocampo piece is to understand the multitude of influences the artist finds himself entrenched in, and the specific painting philosophy he subscribes to.<br/><br/>Moving to the United States in the mid-1980s, Ocampo found himself in the midst of the punk zeitgeist of the time. He settled in Los Angeles, where he eventually became part of a new breed of artists who were branching away from the avant-garde New York School of art. His career’s turning point was his inclusion in the notable 1992 Helter Skelter: L.A. Art in the 1990s exhibition, where images of sex, violence, and warped Americana sought to redefine L.A. art. Helter Sketler was, and still is, held as one of the most important and influential modern contemporary art exhibits.<br/><br/>By the time he went back to Manila in 2003, Ocampo had made a name for himself — an irreverent artist whose taste for the kitsch, the sacred, and the profane raises both awe and discomfort in equal degrees.<br/><br/> Ocampo, too, refuses the moniker of the highbrow artist. Just as his works are an amalgamation of the so-called “low” culture and high culture, he does not exclude himself when parodying. In 2003, the same year as his grand homecoming, Ocampo, with underground artist and punk Romeo Lee, opened the show Lee Almighty at Magnet Gallery, Quezon City, where their grand entrance was a pure red carpet parody. In the same vein as a megastar arriving in a limousine, Ocampo hired a pedicab to drop them at the entrance of the art gallery, where they were met by members of the media, their fellow artists, and fans.<br/><br/>With Ocampo’s cheeky irreverence established, we will then do what he was reticent to do: assign meaning to his works. His 2003 Peace Dove Monument is filled with elements with immediately noticeable meanings. He depicts an impossibly massive dove sitting astride an armored black warhorse as though a human. It cradles two items in its arms: an olive branch and a skull. It is not hard to parse out Peace Dove Monument’s possible meaning — with the symbols of war and peace proliferating across the canvas, Ocampo features the physical and emotional tension between life and death.<br/><br/>But perhaps it is not the meaning-making itself that Ocampo was adamant against. First and foremost a rebellious artist himself, he is reluctant not to the process of finding meaning itself but to his involvement in it as an artist. In a 2025 interview with Francine Marquez following his Art Fair Philippines participation, he said: “I’d rather let the pieces themselves occupy that space of ambiguity. Art isn’t a transaction—it’s an invitation.”<br/><br/>The retinue of the elements in his canvas does not exist in a vacuum; they exist within the context of the artist. “It’s about questioning who gets to define meaning, who controls narratives, and how symbols can be weaponized— or disarmed,” he said. His status both as a participant and an outsider from the cultures he depicts within his canvas — a status born from the centuries-long colonization of the Philippines and the country’s subsequent quest to find her own identity — allows him to remix these images into something new, to create new meanings as well as to reject them.<br/><br/>Ocampo defined his process as abstract, almost instinctual. The messages appear after the act of creation, and not a second before. But, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, so does the meaning of his canvases. Ocampo’s thesis, therefore, is to “invite” his viewers into a conversation with his piece, for them to draw their own conclusion from the myriad of symbolism adorning the canvas. Peace Dove Monument is no different — Ocampo trusts the viewer to see the work on their own terms. To quote the artist: “Sometimes, the most radical act is to laugh, remix, and spit [the meaning] back.” (Hannah Andrea Valiente)","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":700000,"bp":0.2016,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":700000,"userBid":6890,"isPaid":0,"userId":34,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":25075,"reserve_price":0,"hammer_price":841120,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":68552,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/209/242/lot/75.jpg","isFeatured":1},{"id":68869,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/209/242/lot/75a.jpg","isFeatured":0},{"id":68868,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/209/242/lot/75b.jpg","isFeatured":0}]},"increment":[450000,500000,550000,600000,650000,700000,750000,800000,900000,1000000,1100000,1200000,1300000,1400000,1500000,1600000,1700000,1800000,1900000,2000000,2200000,2400000,2600000,2800000,3000000,3200000,3400000,3600000,3800000,4000000,4200000,4400000,4600000,4800000,5000000,5500000,6000000,6500000,7000000,7500000,8000000,8500000,9000000,9500000,10000000,11000000,12000000,13000000,14000000,15000000,16000000,17000000,18000000,19000000,20000000],"prev":74,"next":76,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}