Pandy Aviado & the art of subverting expectations

Talking to artist Pandy Aviado is a trip, man.

You start with the Manila art scene in the ’80s; go to Fidel Castro’s Cuba and stand within a few feet of the Comandante; take a trip to everywhere from Mexico City to the City of Lights; hear the birds back home singing after the last strains of Bach and the lost chords of Warren Zevon and Tom Waits; all the while constantly pursuing an always-being-refined art practice; and then end up talking about how the ghost lights in the skies are made by cluster of dead stars.

If you think Pandy’s past artworks are trippy, wait until you see his new works that retain the Aviado touch, but present something new and exploratory: art that was borne out of the principle of shaking things up until the imperfectly faultless becomes deliberately flawed to perfection.

“There is a Japanese term for imperfect art—wabi-sabi,” explains the artist about how this sense of aesthetics centers upon the acceptance of transience and imperfection. He first heard it from a potter who—after crafting the most perfect- looking pots—would shake them all up “to make them less boring and more human.”

Pandy’s approach to his new pieces is to employ accidental drips, cracks, scratches, irregularities and graffiti in aspiring for the art of imperfection. Aviado’s “Wabi Sabi” opens on Aug. 22, Tuesday, 6 p.m., at The Crucible Gallery, fourth floor of SM Megamall A.

“Some things are nicer when they are imperfect,” he says about creating artworks that center on chance and accidents, and express outside-the-box beauty.

“I want to explore things that are more natural. For me, all the works that I’ve done are in the state of ‘WIP’ (works in progress). I am always looking at them and thinking ‘Hindi pa ito, eh.’ Until I put one dot or one stroke and then… there! That’s it. Matagal ’yung process because I am always waiting for that (essential) last touch (to finish the artwork).”

Same with life, he says. “I don’t think I’ve already reached my peak. I am still trying to work on something. I still have so many things to say.”

Virgilio “Pandy” Aviado is considered as one of the top printmakers in the country. He helmed the Art Association of the Philippines (AAP) and the visual arts department of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP). Later on, he bid adieu to that world of benevolent bureaucrats and deceptive backstabbers to concentrate on his art. From his first show at the Luz Gallery in 1967, to “Graven Images: 50 Years of Printmaking” in 2014 at Ayala Museum, up to his slate of new painting exhibitions in 2023, the artist is unfailingly bodying boundaries—like a power forward backing down the defense to get to that constantly moving rim.

Where does he get the energy?

He answers that it’s through the passion for things that surprise him.

“As an artist, I still want to surprise myself,” Pandy says. Unlike other artists who have found a subject or motif that collectors salivate over, and then redo it to death. There is no singular image or fixed direction associated with Aviado; it’s all about the procedure and the practice. 

“For me it’s not the finished product, but the process of finishing it. As much as possible, I try not to repeat myself. I try not to be myself, but eventually I end up being me (laughs). An artist unavoidably channels all the artists he has encountered.”

They become part of an infinite wellspring to draw from. According to Pandy, when he looks at landscapes and sunsets, he can see Rothko. “There is a certain spirit that tries to have a conversation with me, and the end result is my artwork. (Sometimes, when I look at an artwork, I ask,) Okay ba ito kay Mondrian?” The conversations never stop.

“When the world stood still (during the lockdowns), all of the sudden there was nothing to do except art. My only duty was to paint.”

The series for The Crucible was created during that hiatus from the outside world. In the course of working on these pieces, what did Pandy discover about himself as an artist and as a person?

“It’s realizing that there is something bigger than me. It’s like (the parable of the) four blind men trying to describe an elephant. (A wall? A spear? A snake? A tree trunk?). They don’t see the bigger picture.” That elephant may very well symbolize God or, in Pandy’s case, art. It’s in the same vein as an artist trying to tap into a larger consciousness, approximating what he has encountered so far. “I am trying to take a grasp of it. I am just a fractal of that larger thing. And I want to know what it is.”

When not painting, printmaking or creating art, who is Pandy Aviado?

“Well, I am never not an artist,” he concludes. “When I was younger, I juggled roles and was always multitasking—as a father, an artist, a manager, a dean, an art director. I wore many hats. Now, I have come to the point na isa na lang ’yung bola.”

And it juggles toward art and art only.

A ball to bounce upon that mysterious mass, tracing an inscrutable elephant.

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Pandy Aviado’s “Wabi Sabi” will be on view from Aug. 22 until Sept. 3. For information, follow The Crucible on social media.