Fernando Modesto’s latest solo exhibition at MO_Space titled Rewind is a partial survey of the artist’s drawings, lithographs, and paintings done within a period of twenty-five years. A raconteur who spins tales through his art, Modesto has created a body of work that is colourful, witty, irreverent, naughty, humorous, and at the same time, pensive and full of melancholia. This exhibition charts these qualities that have long been associated with the artist and reflects a practice grounded on the immediacy of direct visual experience.

Since the 1970s, Modesto has worked in a variety of expressive materials and forms, including figurative paintings, colour fields, and found objects that reveal his interests in allegorical narratives, literature, and spiritual as well as banal themes drawn from everyday life. Part of the Shop 6 group of artists, he playfully mocked established artistic conventions amidst the political turbulence of Martial Law with his installations and assemblages using perishable and common materials. In his other works, he has juxtaposed erotic imagery, lovers, angels, celestial bodies, roses, palettes, marbles, texts, and twirling tops. He refutes the artist’s perceived role as a harbinger of the mysterious; rather he sees his works as affirmations of the artist’s sense of self.

Modesto studied at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila and Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design in London. He has exhibited widely in the Philippines and Indonesia, where he was based for nearly twenty years. His works have also been shown as part of the Philippine printmakers exhibition at the Royal Festival Hall in London, Third Asian Show and the Contemporary Art Exhibition both at the Fukuoka Art Museum, VII Biennal International del Arte de Valparaiso in Chile, Exposicion International de Dibujos en Brusque in Brasil, Rassenga Internationale di Arte Postale in Turin and the Etajima International Mail Art Show in Hiroshima, Kunsan International Modern Art Exhibition, and the ASEAN Travelling Exhibition from 1988-1989. He has received several awards including the Thirteen Artist Award from the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 1974 and the Grand Prize in the Artists’ Association of the Philippines Annual Competition in 1981. Aside from painting, he also taught at the University of the Philippines - College of Fine Arts and worked as a designer, creating numerous posters for other artists’ exhibitions and performances as well as his own shows. He also did the production design and art direction for films such as Mike de Leon’s Sister Stella L and Hindi Nahahati Ang Langit. His most recent solo exhibition, Anonymous was held at West Gallery last August 2014.

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