Patrick Esmao: TOO-DIMENSIONAL FILIPINO ARTIST

Name: Patrick D. Esmao

Art Form: Visual Art

Areas of Interest

I started with painting, but right now I’m exploring what I call “TOO-DIMENSIONAL ART”. Too-Dimensional stands for “very dimensional”. A wall bound sculpture using 3D geometric objects made out of paper boards. At this stage of exploring this type of art, most of my works are confined within a frame; I’m planning to make it more interactive to the audience similar to that of an installation art.

Biography:

I was born on October 30 1986 at Baras, Rizal. I took up Education at the University of Rizal System, major in Drafting. I excelled in the area of commercial arts where I developed my knowledge in colors, composition, design principles and self-expressions through visual media. I explored my creativity by joining art contest and learn from experiences.

In 2007 after graduating, I spent a year painting murals for schools. And in 2008, together with three other friends, we organized a group in Morong, Rizal known as MUSTRA ARTISTS GROUP. On the same year, I was hired as a teacher at Rizal High School in Pasig City where I teach arts for more than seven (7) years now.

Landscapes and rural scenes are the themes of my early works; this kind of subjects connects me to my roots, places where I grew up. When I moved to Pasig City to work as full-time teacher, I frequent galleries and shows trying to learn from different artist. Different encounters lead me to rediscovering my artistry. From landscapes, I tried figurative (nude) painting. It’s a bit of a struggle because I have to borrow photo references from other people and I felt like I did not create anything in the process of reproducing other people’s photograph. I tried abstract painting for a very short time and produce very little of these kind of work, although some of the element of my recent artworks are in abstraction.

In 2014, I experimented on a different form of texture. Instead of creating texture using paint or other thickener I decided to create depth on the base support itself using 3D geometric forms and this is what I call TOO-DIMENSIONAL ART today. I started with animals and flowers as subjects in a representational abstraction. My 2015 TOO-DIMENSIONALSCAPE SERIES is what really defines the future of the artwork that I want to pursue. In this series, I used poster board to achieve sharper edges on the 3D geometric forms. I used 165 pieces of pyramids for each of the 5 artworks. Framed and enclosed in glass to protect the material from elements. I wanted to create visual representation of an abstract concept using this type of art, but some of the artworks are inspired by physical objects that convey certain themes.