Benedicto Cabrera, also known as BenCab, is a Filipino painter and was awarded as National Artist of the Philippines for Visual Arts in 2006. He is a major figure in the Philippine art scene and he runs the famous BenCab museum in Tuba, Benguet.
HIS ART STYLE
BenCab has always been into movements and forms when referring to art. His works are overflowing with brush strokes—almost moving, and figures where bodies are doing movements.
His art style is called ‘Figurative Art’ in which he matches elements in the real world and in human form, portraying a raw emotion.
“SABEL”
‘Sabel’ has always been Bencab’s major subject inspired in real life. ‘Sabel’ is inspired by a scavenger wandering in the streets, wearing plastics. BenCab was then working as an illustrator when he saw Sabel on the streets. He named her Sabel and she is a symbol of dislocation, despair, and isolation—the personification of dignity in circumstances.
BenCab has a lot of ‘Sabel’ paintings executing movements that can be interpreted through art and reality.
He has a café inside his museum named, “Café Sabel”.
ART, POWER, AND MOVEMENT
SABEL (acrylic on handmade paper)
This is Sabel on her plastic clothes surrounded by lines and movements. The bright background and color is in contrast with dark background to emphasize depth and abstraction.
BROWN BROTHERS’ BURDEN (acrylic in paper)
Ben’s portraits are usually in sepia tint. He has this series of paintings called ‘Larawan’ and it’s about stories of Filipinos inspired from the 70’s and whose backgrounds were rendered in geometric simplicity of colors red, brown, white, and black.
THE ORIENTAL FAN (acrylic and collage on paper)
BenCab also combined photography to incorporate with his art. Some of his paintings, like this one, is a representation that painting is his departure when it comes to photography and that those two are best combined—art recreated from photos but still masquerades as photograph.
CONCLUSION
BenCab’s observation when it comes to art forms is his way of expressing and maintaining his style in figurative expressions. He is hailed as the best painter for his generation here in the Philippines.
