Italian artist Nino Quartana’s collection of 25 paintings in mixed media, VOLCANO is inspired by the artist’s own musings and perceptions, brought to the fore ostensibly by time spent in the vicinity of the Philippine’s own perfect Mayon, where Quartana vicariously experienced the everyday reality of the nearby fishing community of Santo Domingo on two separate occasions for workshops. There, steeped in the aesthetic balm of nature’s amazing perfection, viewing it in all times of day and night; light and dark; in stillness and silence and in the hubbub of village activity, cognizant of the mountain’s potent power of both creation and destruction, Quartana imbibed the volcano’s essence, where it resonated with a long-present pervading interest in the nature of energy, creativity and change.

The exhibit brings together a collection of surreal landscapes and portraits that eloquently communicate the artist’s view on the sublime power and the paradoxical nature embodied by the volcano, something Quartana has repeatedly experienced first-hand to be a font of invigoration.

At once a guardian and a potential destroyer, the volcano of Quartana’s paintings takes on many guises: a faint ghost-like presence of benevolent spirit; the central figure etched darkly into a landscape of maelstrom and movement; a distant vantage point of focus beyond tumultuous seas, a backdrop for the community that it both sustains and ominously holds in sway. In many paintings, the iconic Philippine jeepney, itself a manifestation of the creative force that Quartana considers akin to the volcano, a figure that augurs energy, color, motion and hope, makes an almost contrapuntal appearance that both echoes and contrasts the volcano’s gigantic steady presence.

Symbolically represented by the people Quartana has chosen to paint in portrait, this same spirit of the volcano is evident in these icons of energy, creativity and dynamism, individuals who, through a spectrum of social milieu, have piqued and turned the tide of public interest, inspired by their talent and achievement, provoked thought and growth and inevitably wrought change both within and without. Counting among these luminaries are Philippine rennaissance man and hero Jose Rizal, influential painter Juan Luna, U.S. President-elect Barack Obama , Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara, Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti, Jewish-German born physicist Einstein, Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona and French singer Edith Piaf.

This is the central idea behind Nino Quartana’s art: that it is a medium of exchange and provocation, not just artifact but a profound experience of exploration that brings together the notion of the aesthetic, the intellect and the spirit. Quartana’s mantra echoes palpably in each painting as something that goes beyond images that soothe or propel one into flights of fancy, but rather, engages the onlooker as participant, invokes discourse and begins a process of questioning, challenge, insight and affirmation or revolution, an embodiment of the paradox and zen equilibrium of life that is the volcano energy.

VOLCANO is set for 7 to 21 March 2009 at the Ayala Museum, ArtistSpace, 2nd Floor, Glass Wing, Makati Avenue cor. Dela Rosa Street, Makati City. The opening is on 7 March 2009 from 6.30 to 9.30 p.m. Entrance is free.

For Inquiries: call Tel. No. (632) 7577117, email us at mina.ma@ayalamuseum.org or manumanila@mydestiny.net or visit our website at www.ayalamuseum.org or www.ninoquartana.it

Contextualizing his responses to the universal notions of creativity, and the theme of innovation celebrated this year by the European Union echoing the celebration of Gallilean discovery and advancement, Quartana has immersed himself in identifiably local symbols of Philippine geography, culture and being. Primarily an homage to Mayon, the collection of landscapes is more than just a series of everyday idyllic scenes of the now world-famous Philippine volcano. The jeepney, iconically Filipino, creativity and movement incarnate, zips through Quartana’s landscapes, small yet far from inconsequential or unnoticeable.

An innovation from the wartime American jeep made serviceable for the masses, and an expression of the common man’s artistic bent, the jeepney is yet another element of the artist’s work reflecting variations on the theme. It brings with it that characteristic blur of motion and color, suggests travel through Philippine territory, is conveyor of the people through terrain both physical and sociological, and speaks volumes of a manmade emblem of this country, striking and in its own way beautiful yet inorganic. Juxtaposed against Mayon, symbol of organic, natural perfection, the majesty of scale and representations of power each has are highlighted. The paintings bring together these elements in a manner that engenders analysis as well as provides testament to the artist’s conceptual perspectives, bringing to the viewer’s attention both the dichotomy and harmony of ideas and essence.

The volcano is never static despite it being a solid and enduring testament to the amazing aesthetic of natural phenomena. Breathing life, it remains active at its core, creating a dynamic tension with its surroundings. A natural conduit for the release of internally built pressure brought about by change and movement at the Earth’s center, to Quartana the volcano serves as both muse and familiar — the latter an apparent metaphor for the artist as a font and medium for internal creative energy. Mayon in particular, with a near perfect cone that is continually redefined yet no less beautiful with each successive eruption, is stimulus and illumination that transports the spirit.

What better protagonist for the artist’s hero quest than the country’s own renaissance man? Quartana identifies Jose Rizal, national hero, physician, artist, writer and instigator of revolution and resistance to the existing establishment of his time, as a prime example of volcano nature in its human guise, dedicating the exhibit to his memory. Sensitively immortalized in the artist’s style that evokes reminiscence of paintings that have born the passage of time, Rizal leads the portrait line up of individuals chosen for their embodiment of volcanic impetus and effect. Etched in faint scribbles into the portrait’s background is Isagani’s telling quote from El Filibusterismo, the statement that serves as manifesto to the latter’s raison d’etre; testifying to his singular act of thwarting Simoun’s incendiary attempt to set all afire at the wedding attended by the members of both civil society and Church hierarchy: “Fire you, you say, and water we. Then as you wish, so let it be: But let us live in peace and right. Nor shall the fire e’er see us fight; so joined by wisdom’s glowing flame, That without anger, hate or blame, We form the steam, the fifth element, Progress and light, life and movement.” Isagani’s love serves almost as a deus ex machina. For Quartana, the energy within each individual that has the potential to both create and destroy is the epitome of that same quality.
Einstein, a recognizable figure set against the blackness of infinite space, his expression at once sage and full of childlike wonder, the light of the stars coming through the night sky from a distance eons away, dug through several dimensions and winking whitely out of the immense void. This is but one portrait in a tapestry of skeins that evince the spirit of searching and discovery; the inexorable pushing forward and upward of natural forces to propel change, of Man in response to challenge and Nature; these are the underlying philosophies and images that are brought to mind in the faces that weave together the exhibit’s collection of progressive personalities. More portraits in the collection clearly illustrate this very thesis: history has shown, through different cultures and in different endeavors, individuals who have tapped into that well-spring of energy to become instruments of change and beacons of progress or inspiration. These personifications of volcanic force pulse with life, proving by their very existence how much the human spirit is capable of insight and metamorphosis.
Quartana ably employs the technique of etching into layers with both symbolic and artistic success, echoing the idea of unearthing from layers beneath, allowing the hidden to make itself known and change the surface of things, just as the volcano spews forth and brings up magma of incandescent and pulsating life and color, magically altering the landscape.
Built upon layers of carefully prepared multimedia, each painting comes into being rather like metamorphic rock. A base of wood upon which putty is applied and caked in black, laying the foundation that appears to the eye almost like aged stone, or dried magma. Upon this surface, other applications of acrylic, oil and pastel coalesce and merge, veiled over yet again and then are etched into and filled in with vibrant strokes of pencil-thin color streaking through grooves, trickling into the channels lava-like, as the artist allows each painting to take on a life of its own. Describing the act of painting as something akin to an explorer’s journey into uncharted territory, Quartana’s process is the essence of someone in the throes of search and creation, where he begins with the germ of an idea that takes flight as he loses himself in the evolution of the image as it emerges.

Continually on a mission for his own personal best as well as propelled forward by the notion of constant learning, Quartana pushes himself out of his own comfort zones. Once the artist finds himself near to perfecting a technique, or in the routinary motions of something that had initially emerged to his satisfaction in previous works, he shifts and attempts something new. The expression of the mental image in ways that force him to go beyond known parameters of his artistic experience is the crux of his journey. In this is echoed Rilke’s: “Surely all art is the result of one’s having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, where one can go no further than that.” The end result of the progression for Quartana is revelation and benediction, manifestation of idea and resulting exploration. The adventure of the process serves as much impetus and reward as the satisfaction of seeing it come to fruition concretely at the end point of the journey, when the painting has reached its pinnacle of embodying both his initial conception and its own sense of just being. He demands as much of himself as he incites in the viewers of his work: do not be complacent, grow, innovate, embrace change. This is the tao of the undertaking.

Text by: Joanna Altomonte Abrera

Staged at the Garden of the Muses, a heterogeneous world framed by angles, always deliberately presented in different ways. This is what Nino Quartana’s works propose. Following the exhibition route, we are in a continuous state of anticipation because we do not have time to “digest” a particular style of expression. Work after work, we are compelled to look back to “what we think we have understood” understanding that we cannot use the same gauge for contents of varying levels. It is as if the subject itself chooses its own language finding in Quartana’s technical know-how an unassuming tool to every curve capable of producing every mark. Reality of course offers suggestions of different signs and it is through an individual process that we fill up our memory, loading it with everything that we deem worthy to be part of our emotions. Yet we must not underestimate ideas, philosophical speculations and grand socio-political debates. If art must always and in anyway suggest and understand liberty of thought and expression, it is also true that great conquests pass through grasp of positions, decisive accusations and ironic prominence. In a refined combination of cautions and new icons, the known performer takes on a new force that communicates even to those who do not see the point of the reference. In his works such as “La Danza (The Dance)”, “Berlusca (Berlusca)” and “Gli Assi Del Male (Aces of Evil)”, social and political indictment is easily recognized. Through collage, drawings, paintings and an original work made of wood, foam, phosphorescent paint and light of Wood, from the title “Boomerang” we progress from irony to melancholy, clear registration and to homage. Homage to music such as in the painting Lou Reed; homage to youth, to the delicate process that is the internal formation of man in the collage Ritratto di Giovane Artista (Portrait of a Young Artist); homage to the people to whose thoughts, actions and art left or will leave a mark in the collective memory, subjects of numerous portraits systematically laid out in big panels as if wanting to place in a single image different but assertive contributions to the history of civilization.

The artist’s uncanny appetite for contrast and the obvious difference between the Philippines and his hometown in Sicily has drawn him to the country where he found his niche using volcanic ash.

By JESSIE RUTH GRANADILLOS

Who would’ve thought that an Italian painter, driven by passion and sheer energy would create a mixed media art piece called Bahala Na Batman?

Probably not in a million years. Maybe not anyone among the entire population of Italy – except that one actually did. He is the ceramist, stage designer, and fine arts professor from Sicily, the volcanic ash painter Nino Quartana.

Quartana’s love affair with the Muse started when he was very young. Unlike some artists who remember the first time they decided to take up brush and paint, Quartana only says nonchalantly that he started when he was about five years old. He created what viewers regarded as surrealist art then he just kept at it until he held his first exhibit at 19 in Italy. At 22, he was the first one in the entire island of Sicily to create installation art: 300 ceramic lizards deliberately splattered on the wall.

As with most artists, Quartana seems to be a validation of the belief that destiny or fate plays its hand in the end. Artists are born to it but how they live out their destiny can be another story.

Quartana is a case in point. Upon entering his house, one readily gets the feel that this is an artist’s domain. The rays of the sun slashed through a wide glass window, casting everything inside in its brilliant glow. By the hallway before entering the common room, a strip of glass runs from floor to ceiling, displaying the art works from his first exhibit in the Philippines called Night and Day.

Quartana found his way to the Philippines four years ago eager to find out what makes the country tick, and to get a glimpse of its soul. “Night and Day” was an appropriate first exhibit that demonstrated his uncanny appetite for contrast and the obvious difference between the Philippines and his hometown. “When it is bright and sunny here, it is dark and cold back home,” he says wryly.

“Tutto quello che hei deto soine tuo per sempre!” is a quote written across the wooden plywood stand resting against the white wall of the room where he paints. Roughly translated, it means “All you have given will be yours forever.”

True to form, in each of his paintings, Quartana had given his all. He used a wide variety of media including plaster, ink, charcoal, acrylic, and pastel; sometimes even nail polish. He employed just about anything to convey what he feels leading to an exploration of the material that gave him a niche in the local art scene – volcanic ashes. Quartana has always had a fascination for volcanoes. Mayon Volcano’s perfect cone has drawn him to Legazpi City in Bicol. He has painted landscapes with Mayon Volcano looming majestically above it all and juxtaposed it with its complete opposite – imaginary cities of glass and steel and ribbons of paved roads; all these distillations of his memories of previous sojourns. “This is the engine of the world,” he said. “There is always chaos to destroy order.” A volcano is quiet and dormant most of its years but there is great energy and power building up inside it, waiting for the right time to be unleashed. People live in an organized manner only to be inevitably disrupted, cope with cactaclysms and be reborn.”

Quartana traveled from one country to another, sometimes conducting weeklong workshops. His trips to Bicol to see the volcano have also exposed him to the culture of Filipinos. He recalls several times when he had asked the locals what they do in times of trouble or if the volcano erupts, all they had to say was “Bahala na Batman.” Hence, his playful rendition of the Mayon Volcano that was drawn on plaster. Surrounding it are illustrations on paper, and to complete the piece, a small plastic Batman figurine on top as if the plastic hero was the guardian of the entire land.

His passion for volcanic matter did not limit him to painting landscapes. He also used its ashes to create captivating portraits. As if transferring the energy from the heart of the volcano to the plaster, the portraits depict famous historical icons whose eyes immediately lock in with the viewer and transmit powerful and seemingly personal emotions. It is rare to see a painting that has so much soul, and most of Quartana’s works have this intense appeal. Plaster was his basic medium, where he carved lines while it was still wet to create the shape of the faces. “I put tracks in the plaster, in the same way that the people I drew shaped the world.” He then spreads black beads of volcanic ash across the piece to create the eyes and highlight the shadows in his portraits.

The portrait of Mother Theresa spoke of forgiveness and unconditional love to serve the less fortunate. Albert Einstein looked out into the abyss, an image of someone lost in his own thoughts. Che Guevarra’s strength of will emanates from the expression of his face. Edith Piaf’s smoky voice and angst-ridden rendition is mirrored in her face. Leonardo Da Vinci is there in all his glory – long beard and penetrating eyes. Jose Rizal’s seemingly his innocent face masks his conviction. Lastly, there’s Manny Pacquiao with his arms of steel and fists of stone.

Quartana said he painted these people “out of pure admiration for what they have accomplished – of what a single human being can do to the world.”

“When I paint, the possibility of it getting sold is not my biggest concern.” He added.

Most artists, as well as buyers of art, he said have a tendency to have a misconception that the price of the art and its beauty are one and the same. Quartana reminds everyone that “the business is different from the art.” Investment is the vessel of the business. When an artist worries too much about the business, he loses focus on the personality of his art.

Quartana has been exhibiting works in Italy since 1979. He was also an artistic manager of ceramics for the Atelier Sul Mare, and has designed costumes and stages for an Italian television network, Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI). In the four years he has been in the Philippines, he has done over 30 exhibits with several well-known galleries such as Galleria Duemila, Astra Gallery, and the Ayala Museum. Last December 4, he opened a month-long solo exhibit at the prestigious Tagaytay Highlands.

“Oh, Nino!” – I would often hear Manu exclaim
Seeing you with eyes gleaming with pride, chest beating
To show-off your new masterpiece, and then tease you
That her portrait Nos. 6 & 7 are still missing on the wall!

Oh, Nino! – I still remember that first time we met, my brother.
It was a piano concert at the CCP,
When the audience was asked to sing Italian songs,
And you immediately came up to me and said:
“Senen, you have a very peculiar face, I must paint you!”

Oh, Nino! – There were times you would just pass by
To tell me: “My brother, I am crazy!” and as if on cue
I would already declare a national holiday
And we would go visit the Chinese Cemetery to take pictures,
Or introduce you to my own world of childhood friends.

Oh, Nino! – I could never forget that almost Christmas day
You showed my friends the brilliance of your artistry!
From almost scratch and some photos, you created pieces
Met with “Ohs” and “Ahs” in admiration!

Oh, Nino! – Neither can memory be erased
Of that one humid day when we went drinking with friends
On a swing and you had your first taste of tinapang tilapia
After which you suddenly started speaking English fluently
And we were talking to you in Italian!

Oh, Nino! – Just when my day starts going South,
I receive a text from you saying: “I cooked something, I will send some!”
Then I suddenly would be transformed into a Sicilian Prince
Savoring a majestic feast of freshly baked home made bread
With a new and exciting Italian dish,
Restaurants in Manila would hire a hit man to have!

Oh, Nino, my brother, when I grow up, I want to be just like you!

Nino Quartana, an Italian painter, ceramist and stage designer who is currently based here in Manila, opens his show titled, “The Days and the Night” on September 1, 2007 at Galleria Duemila in Pasay City.

“It is not possible to not be influenced by the artists that came before…”
-Nino Quartana

With that statement in mind, it makes sense that Quartana plays with several artistic styles, in a way paying homage to his favorite artists that have influenced him through the years, as well as keeping himself entertained and inspired. The influence of Goya is evident in some works, but he makes it his own. His perspective is unique and his art fresh and playful, even when challenged by serious topics. For example, he does a portrait of Tiziano Terzani, an Italian who lived in Asia for 30 years and wrote the book “Giai Phong- The Liberation of Saigon” which our own Ninoy Aquino had read and loved. In Quartana’s painting, he depicts the journalist Terzani surrounded by skulls, as he had been in one of the mass burial sites of Pol Pot”s Victims in Cambodia. “We walk over the skeletons of our ancestors,” the artist states. He also has portraits of Che Guevarra and Fidel Castro- the heroes of his youth.

Yet his sense of humor is evident in other works, one of which is an older piece where he tells 2 different stories in “The Night Watcher”, mixing classical and contemporary art with Caravaggio and pop- culture’s Batman. It is an artistic play of parts where different areas of time are put together, as well as different styles and time periods. Supposedly there is a cliché in the art world that cartoonists are the lowest of artists, but Quartana disagrees. He believes that there are excellent cartoonists and that they too, should garner more respect. It is all art, after, all.

Besides history, Nino Quartana is motivated by music, such as jazz- which makes sense, since jazz has few boundaries and what rules there are often broken or bent by the best of musicians. The way he paints is very much like that. A good musician is not held back or hampered by genre, and as a visual artist, he feels that he too, should not be limited in what he can “play” or how to play it.
Nino Quartana also does a series of works in plexiglass, with titles such as “I, stop the moments”, “One on top of each other to see the sun”, and “The Days and the Night”.

The running theme therefore, for this exhibit, is the element of time.
“Art is a time machine.”
-Nino Quartana

Indeed it is. Quartana captures time, stops it, makes it fly. He holds it gently between his canvas and his paintbrush.
Nino Quartana attended the Arts High School and Fine Arts University in Palermo. His artworks have been showcased in Italy and other parts of the world since 1979. While in Milan he worked for the Italian television network RAI realizing sceneries, theater costumes and the like. He designed display stands for BIT (International Tourism Fair) in Milan and for other important business and art events around Italy. In Sicily he was the artistic manager of the Ceramics Atelier of “Atelier sul mare”, a unique hotel situated in Castel di Tusa, near Cefalu which showcases the masterpieces of the most important international artists. His works are still exhibited in the permanent collection of the hotel museum, “Fiumara d”Arte”. He has been a teacher of painting techniques and stagecraft in several qualifying courses funded by public and private organizations and has worked for programs funded by the European Union and Sicilian Region aimed at the rehabilitation of children at risk by means of painting, stagecraft and drama. His past works can be viewed at www.ninoquartana.it

The rest of the message is still a detailed list: titles, measurements and lastly attached images. Nino told me that the faces in his latest paintings are those of young people with whom he worked, “difficult” young people yet they were close to Professor Quartana. I observed them and then asked: “What exactly are they?” They are portraits, no doubt, but of a style that, in a technical sense, does not need much paint. A few markings to reconstruct a world, an emotion and an idea of a world are enough. What world? Which emotion? More than anything else Nino is interested in recreating the emotion of a diary. He feels the need to save some stories, faces, names that were never pronounced through these paintings.

The most beautiful painting, most distressing and perhaps the one that best demonstrates his virtuosity and heart is called “Guardali (Look at Them)”. It is made of mordant, a material that usually has other purpose. Beyond the technical aspect, “Guardali” is a small masterpiece of emotion. It is a great painting capable of expressing something that does not need a lot of words to reach the truth: a child beside a girl who is perhaps the mother who points to him the presence of a lens, maybe photographic or just a simple glance or maybe even Nino’s own look. In this instant, the painting’s miracle happened. Nino’s painting reaches its truth. The child is saved by Nino’s and our emotions. For a decisive moment the child in the painting enters history. That painting is worth a prayer, one that has never been written by any other painter like him.

Nino Quartana seems to have reached maturity. However, not the technical or composite kind that he already possessed as a young artist. Rather it is a motivational sort of maturity. The answer to that question “What am I doing here?” which confronts anyone who finds himself within the confines of his province, Palermo, in which, just like in anywhere else, he feels that he, is falling into the history of cultural abyss. Am I here for Art? We are not joking. “Because of the market?” The fruit and vegetable market perhaps? For oneself? Masturbation, insomnia, intoxication. Because of social obligations? Pride, hysteria, prophetic, maybe a bit boring. Why then? Because these synesthetic performances mixed with jazz with rock, a little for jest and a little to prevent you from dying.

Then an encyclopedia, a pantheon of noble fathers and books, of sounds and favorite faces. The author gives a lecture about himself supplying the content of his own collection.

This series of extraordinary portraits is the heart and mind of the exhibit. It shows and deals with the reason that we have been looking for. Desperate as Edith Piaff, insatiable as Satie, erotic as Guevarra, bewildered as El Greco: Quartana has something to say to Marcel Duchamp and heard by Antonio Gramsci. It is only up to him to decide the good and the bad, those who were given personal baptism and the million others forgotten.

Beloved Munch is found anywhere and everywhere.

Two complex elements convince me of this exhibit’s great quality. The first is the “style”, in its true sense that requires coherence of form, recognition of the author, uniformity. Nino, however, willingly strays from this mechanism. He knows better that a drawing or painting responds to whoever sees it and brings a message that works better if one makes use of the all the possible image repertoire. This seeming simplicity presupposes such mastery of expressive means that makes real painters such a rarity.

The exhibit’s second statement is the strong presence of blatant social and political condemnation. Soldiers, the Sharons and Berluscas, old archetype of Goya’s “Giants” are depicted as they are seen by Quartana. The big tank made of rock, seen in Epix 1 in the beginning of this season depicts first, “Angels of Our Time” (at the Libr’Aria in Palermo and then at the Atelier sul Mare for “Fiumara d’Arte”. Nino showed how one of the few who puts his feelings in things and facing the observer it shouts (and here we are reminded of Munch), an alarm, a call. The richness of suggestions that this exhibit proposes and the attention that it requires make it a no-nonsense event among the other artistic events around the city. Our little shore is not much frequented by important people in the fields of culture and information. We are then at the mercy of the agency that gives us catalogues but we are sure to offer them a treat, a splash of knowledge, some images to remember.

- Toti Garraffa