Cartography by Anton Quisumbing

Anton Quisumbing's series of recent paintings are drawn loosely from the practice of cartography. These compositions have become studies and references for some of his most recent sculptural pieces. However, the evolution of image-making in Quisumbing's practice is somewhat more apparent through his paintings. Formalist approaches to composition are merged with playful and spontaneous energy as the artist renders landscapes extracted from memory of places familiar and unfamiliar.

"Cartography" (2021), the artist fills the shaped canvas with excruciating detail as he emphasizes forms through lines. Outlining the image, Quisumbing then revels with color through the work "Zaanse Schans" (2022), where the prominence of blue defines certain areas within the foreground and the background, highlighting depth and volume. Similar to the workings of a blueprint, Quisumbing traces fragments from his distinct recollection of landscapes and sites and then proceeds to define the image.

Alternating sinuous patterns while delineating shapes through color, Quisumbing signals the viewer to focus on specific areas within the canvas. In doing so, the artist engages the audience to search for a resemblance of their idea of utopia within these images, presenting the possibility that if we are unable find something that resembles our image of such, perhaps it is necessary to create and perceive our own.

Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 91.44cm diameter
Year: 2021

About the Artist

Quisumbing studied Fine Arts (Sculpture) at the University of the Philippines, Diliman and has decades-long experience in the fabrication and furniture industry. His works have been featured in exhibitions at the Ayala Museum, Alliance Française de Manille, and other art stages, such as the Visayas Art Fair (Cebu), MoCAF (Manila) and Art Fair Philippines (Manila). Abroad, his works were presented in the 1992 WORLD EXPO in Seville, Spain, Milan, Italy, Malaysia, and the United States. He lives and works between Cebu, Manila, and The Netherlands.

While he is best known for bas-relief replicas of Philippine churches in the early stages of his career, Anton Quisumbing's (b.1970) recent works highlight experimentations that are beyond forming images. Navigating between sculpture and painting, he merges formalist approaches with playful and spontaneous candor as he excavates from memory and experience. Incorporating lines and color to illustrate what seems like cartographic landscapes on canvas, Quisumbing loosely translates the pictorial into three-dimensional forms. Primarily a sculptor, his stainless-steel pieces reveal objects and figures informed by personal narratives, which influenced his image-making process. Anchored in testing the malleability and strength of a single material and reintroducing the swift and undazzled manner in which a line can vigorously depict an image, Quisumbing surveys space by means of scale rather than defining it through color and structure. Thus, every angle represents a different facet tied to an idea while subconsciously directing the artist's decisions in his process and studio production– where one jolts with energy, the other stands in confidence, and so forth. In this way, every physical presence makes room for contemplation and treads on the multitude of ways one can be perceived and understood.