The artist has become a tropical island. Back to the country where he was born, he sheds his concern for all of the expectations previously imposed on him by his foreign audiences. He has come into his own and has nothing more to prove to others. The artist's clearest biographical piece is his triptych titled The Island. In the left panel, reflecting his past, he lets go of black boulders, signifying his burdens, that drop into the sea. The center panel is his present: he has become The Awakened Volcano, an island within an island, spewing his plume of assertion into the sky not like lava but like semen, declaring that he is back, that he is here to stay, and that he is a dangerous force, albeit a creative one. In the right panel, he dreams of a future not without woman--someone now distant? someone as yet unidentified, since we cannot see her face?--and not without his loved ones, whom he allows to ride on his shoulders and cling to his body.
Submission of Man depicts the artist's surrender to solitude's embrace. He is aware that isolation has consequences yet does not regret his choice. To the left of his painting is his Shadow Self sitting like a black bulul, the rice god, the god of the harvest, whom he has begged to be his ally rather than confront as an enemy. His submission pays off. The rocks of the god's cavern rise into the sky and transform into clouds.
The motif of the Shadow god reappears in ALPHA. What we see here is not the typical pair of bululs comprised of a man and a woman. Both bululs are male, the Shadow Self and the artist who has now become his equal. Or more than his equal, since his penis is much longer than the Shadow Self's. This is a painting about potency: the artist's newly-acquired powers over men and women. The sun rises behind both figures along with the world, a woman with a deconstructed vagina and breasts, that is ready to receive them as one.
The rest of the paintings in the exhibit are landscapes of the artist's mind. They are of the artist's retirement home as seen through his eyes. Unlike his paintings done abroad with furious colors and deliberately jagged lines, there is something soothing and graceful in these new works. There is no more anger, only passion, and you know that this man will be producing more astounding paintings to his dying day.
Monet has found his Giverny in Calaca, Batangas. It will be a place that many a co-artist will visit in the years to come. This impressionist, however, is no longer a fan of Cezanne. He is completely Raul Deodato Arellano.
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