{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":3500,"auction_id":6,"set_id":8,"lot_number":"100","artist":"Ronald Ventura (b. 1973)","title":"Hunter","starting_price":12000000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 2015 (lower left)","medium":"mixed media and oil on canvas<br /> mounted on wood board","size":"84\" x 60\" (213 cm x 152 cm)","property":null,"coa":null,"provenance":"Private Collection, Hong Kong","exhibited":null,"literature":"Paparoni, Demetrio. Ronald Ventura: Works (1998 - 2017). Milan: Skira editore, 2018. Full-color photograph on page 285 and painting description on page 284.","write_up":"VENTURA’S RAINBOW \nBRIDGE AND HIS \nMENTAL ARCHIVE\nby LISA GUERRERO NAKPIL<br /><br />Ronald Ventura’s “Rainbow Bridge” first made its appearance in his “Finding Home” exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Taipei. It was described as an installation of multi-colored bands created from coiled bamboo and was both Filipino and Asian, traditional and futuristic all at the same time. It used the language of a recognizable material to express both spiritual values (resiliency, endurance under painful circumstance) and modern technology (the information super-highway.)<br /><br /> In the essay, ‘What is Left of Man’, Demetrio Paparoni his chief chronicler writes, “Within the multiple stratifications and superimpositions in Ventura’s works, heteregenous figurations can often be found which unite Christian iconography, precolonial Filipino art, the history of European art, images of television stars, street signs, advertising graphics, and characters from Disney cartoons, Japanese manga or anime and videogames. There is nothing that Ventura a priori excludes that can be perceived in his representations, which reflect the chaos caused by the influx of images that circulate on the web.”<br /><br /> The motif has been a feature of his works as early as 2009 and in the work at hand, Hunter (2013), the rainbow of knowledge streaks out of one eye as the other is covered with doll’s hands. The spectre wears a hat has a fiery plume composed of twisted gargoyles and lizard skeletons. Puffs of clouds and a dark moon surround him. He points a gun at the viewer making it very clear who is Ventura’s ultimate prey.<br /><br /> In conversation with Elio Capuccio in ‘Man, Animal, and Hybrid’, Ventura reveals that he “works with “a vast mental archive.” And “not only that,” he adds, I archive and catalogue images in my computer that I think I will be able to use. My work itself stimulates me to go fish something out of one folder rather than another. Obviously, once transposed on canvas, every image undergoes its own metamorphosis.”<br /><br /> And what a transformation it is to behold : Tongues, eyes, Dick Tracy revolvers, bare buttocks, hothouse flowers, mastiffs wearing skull-embroidered leashes, jump-suited workers carrying drills. scarlet parrots breaking free from a wall of cubes. Indeed, it’s a gorgeous and nightmarish vista that Ventura leads us into, taking us from reality in our stream of consciousness to sweet oblivion.","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":0,"bp":0.168,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":0,"userBid":5926,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"UNSOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":null,"hammer_price":0,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":3707,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/6/8/lot/100.jpg","isFeatured":1},{"id":3709,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/6/8/lot/100a.jpg","isFeatured":0}]},"increment":[11000000,12000000,13000000,14000000,15000000,16000000,17000000,18000000,19000000,20000000],"prev":99,"next":101,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}