{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":39984,"auction_id":61,"set_id":89,"lot_number":"80","artist":"Ronald Ventura  (b. 1973)","title":"Dead End","starting_price":1600000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 2006","medium":"mixed media","size":"98 1/2” x 34” (250 cm x 86 cm)","property":"PROPERTY FROM THE MARCEL CRESPO COLLECTION","coa":null,"provenance":null,"exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"Before 2006 it can be said on a strident note that Ventura’s works were  anthropocentric, with man at the center of his imagined universe, executed with  great draftsmanship.  In 2005, he was given the citation that his art, “....a fantastical  depiction of humanity, and a supreme manifestation of the artist’s virtuosity as a classical  draftsman...is the concourse of object and act: it is none other than a manifestation of the  artist’s study of the self.” The same citation earned him a Studio Residency Grant in Sydney,  Australia.\nThus, by 2006, Ronald Ventura had secured an increasingly formidable name, and more  importantly an unchangeable creative path for himself.  Ronald Ventura has scaled dizzying  heights. Or so he thought.\nBut then, turning points come, even to the most hardened people and artists in particular. For Paul the saint, it was his Damascus Road experience; in the world of art, for Francisco  Goya, it was his mysterious illness in 1793 which left him completely deaf; in the Philippines,  for Victorio Edades, it was the travelling exhibit of the Armory show in 1922 in the United  States that opened his eyes and sensibility; for Ang Kiukok, it was his six weeks in Los Angeles  that dealt a severe culture shock, appalled by the impersonality of its high-rises, its freeway  wastelands, commercialism and alienation.\nThe turning point in the career of Ronald Ventura occurred in 2006, during that same Studio  Residency Grant Down Under.\nThus, in the same vein that Indians in the American Northwest create totem poles  to commemorate significant events; or the British created Nelson's Column to be a monument  in Trafalgar Square to commemorate the Battle of Trafalgar, and heroism of Admiral Horatio  Nelson in 1805; Ronald Ventura created his own memorial, a virtual traffic sign with a horned  skull depicted on the acid yellow panel.  It is a “key work” in the celebrated artist’s career, and  just like how cautionary traffic signs function for artists who drive on full speed, this piece was  a self-realization for Ventura to literally stop and take stock of where he has taken his artistic  path. In short, Ventura created his own traffic sign, STOP, LOOK and LISTEN, with a hint  of “Danger Ahead”, indicating a sea of change in his way of seeing things through the  an artistic lens.  Even his rusty browns and oranges, which came from his Navotas  childhood, gave way to the Acid Yellow, a totally new color in his vocabulary.  Thereafter,  upon finishing this important, watershed piece, his shows revealed a different view  of reality, or his own parallel universe.\nRonald Ventura started exploring pastiche cum chaos — powerful visual universes  in conflict, not only with his imagery but also with the various styles he executes within  his works in surprisingly cohesive compositions.  References to Baroque get mixed  in with nods to Disney and film noir, with each cacophonous work containing a variety  of styles, meshing together realism, flat, abstract color fields and elements of  19th-century illustration, even his fascination with geological formations, and even  explored an aesthetic that gives a nod to artists like Aya Takano and Takashi Murakami,  which manifests more in his sculptures than his paintings.","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":"<p><strong>Ronald Ventura</strong> (b.1973)<br /><em>Dead End</em><br />signed and dated 2006<br />mixed media<br />98 1/2&rdquo; x 34&rdquo; (250 cm x 86 cm)</p>","alias":null,"hp":3400000,"bp":0.168,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":3400000,"userBid":null,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":null,"hammer_price":3971200,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":38488,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/61/89/lot/80.jpg","isFeatured":1},{"id":38489,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/61/89/lot/80b.jpg","isFeatured":0}]},"increment":[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":79,"next":81,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}