Manuel Ocampo, lives and works in Manila, Philippines
The artist's statement: “The theme that comes up again and again are figures that connect to a sort of myth-induced stereotype rendered iconic, but are bludgeoned into a farcical, conceptual iconoclasm rendered absurd by its exaggerated impotence as carriers of meaning or the esthetics of politics. The paintings are a comment on desire as painting itself is an object accustomed to this wish of being desirous, yet, in the series, they have a knack of providing some difficulty to the viewer as the conventions of painting are dismantled to the point of ridicule.”
Using an eclectic mix of art historical styles appropriated to further complicate the uncertainty of meaning as to deconstruct the hierarchical power relations between signs: juxtaposing religious iconography with the secular and the subconscious, producing tragic allegories played by comic actors, impregnating language with bastard content, and presenting tautological compositions to critique notions of authenticity and ownership; Ocampo consistently makes work that unmask the illusion of the real by subverting social belief systems through visual pranks barbed with sobering thought.
Ocampo has exhibited extensively throughout the 1990s, with solo exhibitions at galleries and institutions through Europe, Asia, and the Americas. In 2005, his work was the subject of a large-scale survey at Casa Asia in Barcelona, and Lieu d’Art Contemporain, Sigean, France. Ocampo's work has been included in a number of international surveys, including the 2004 Seville Biennale, 2001 Venice Biennale, the 2001 Berlin Biennale, the 2000 Biennale d’art Contemporain de Lyon, the 1997 Kwangju Biennial, the 1993 Corcoran Biennial, and 1992's controversial Documenta IX. His work was featured in many group shows in the 1990s, including Helter Skelter: LA Art of the 1990s, at Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in 1992; Asia/America: Identities in Contemporary Asian American Art at the Asia Society, New York in 1994; American Stories: Amidst Displacement and Transformation at Setagaya Art Museum, Tokyo in 1997; Pop Surrealism at the Aldrich Museum of Artin 1998; and Made in California: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900-2000 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2000. He has received a number of prestigious grants and awards, including the Giverny Residency (1998), the Rome Prize at the American Academy (1995–96), National Endowment for the Arts (1996), Pollock-Krasner Foundation (1995) and Art Matters Inc. (1991).