Citizen Ed

Behind the green gate of an unassuming studio in a Makati side street, a small group of workers are welding pieces of what are shaping to be some avant-garde objets d'art. Beside them are blueprints, damp from the rainy mist of a cloudy afternoon, offering a peek at what the finished products would look like. Even on paper the pieces look intricate, remarkably detailed, and creative in a way that can only come from a gifted mind. “E.C.”, reads the signature on the sketches, betraying the identity of the self-effacing man responsible for all this.

It is almost impossible not to notice the art of Eduardo Castrillo, wherever and howsoever one finds it. Having taken the Philippine culture scene by storm forty years ago, the sculptor / jewelry designer has since produced an amalgam of works that are at once international, monumental, and social. His “Heritage of Cebu” at the Parian Park, more than one of the many truly important attractions in the Philippines, stands as a metaphor that speaks volumes of his contribution to the artistic development of the country: a world-class concept in contemporary art; a masterful (and massive) expression of creativity; and a glimpse of national history before the Filipinos' gaze.

Recently, Castrillo celebrated his history and his career in a series of exhibits which - in much the same prevailing manner as his works are located – ran at the UST Museum, Cultural Center of the Philippines, The Yuchengco Museum, and Choice Gallery Expressions at Jupiter Street. “It's a time to show what I've done in the past and an opportunity to show the transition I've underwent,” Castrillo explains at one of his shows. Even so, as he marked four decades of a celebrated career, this 1966 recipient of the Republic Cultural Heritage Award is quick to dismiss the notion that his temperament has significantly changed. “The controversies are still there,” he says with a smile. “The angst is still there. And the overpowering creativity remains.”

True enough, Castrillo can be found these days keeping himself busy as ever. Apart from diligently working on his various jewelry collections, Ed is continuously making and designing concepts to channel an intense drive to create. In fact, he is planning an 11-hectare theme park meant to become as a one-stop shop of all creations, a visual arts educational museum with replicas of famous works as the “Mona Lisa” or “Guernica”.

The park concept is one that obviously requires plenty of time, space, and finance (not to mention painstaking government relations and tedious international research). But if there is one man who continuously garners success by overstepping the limits imposed by rationality, convention and politics, Castrillo is that man. 

Despite never having received formal art education (he majored in advertising in UST but maintains having carried on his studies idly), Ed has continued to impress - nay, astound - art critics, collectors, peers, designers and students. With the valiance, variety and vision of his work, sometimes even the well-studied scholar faces the dilemma of which category to ascribe it.

“Critics often have trouble categorizing my work because most of them are apprehensive of movement,” Ed notes. It must be noted, though, that this is no trouble for him, because he believes that “for an artist to be progressive, one must not conform. After all, my goal is to bring change and steer inspiration, to create a new path of artwork in the Philippines.

“It's for the country to have the proper heritage it deserves.”

Among those which he has bequeathed to the sculptural landscape are the “Martyrdom of Dr. Jose P. Rizal” in Luneta, “Bonifacio Shrine” at Manila City Hall, “Our Lady of Remedios Shrine” fronting the Malate Parish, “The People's Power Monument” along EDSA, and “The Spirit of EDSA” at RCBC Building in Makati. But there is great injustice in being bound to mention only a few bullets in his chronology of work, for Castrillo is a multi-awarded, internationally-commissioned and widely-admired artist – the most progressive, perhaps, of our time.

More than bringing home the awards and carving for himself a guaranteed place in the annals of Philippine art history, Castrillo has also time and again served as “a Filipino prize-fighter” and “a citizen to humanity”. He explains that “I owe a great deal of expressing myself to God and country”, and it is this steady notion upon which Castrillo dutifully carries out his artistic vision. He is well-known for the practice of donating his public monuments for selected communities; as partners in the production of this art, these communities answer for the cost of materials and labor. To Ed, there are few things as imperative as the accessibility of art. “Although art has often been overshadowed by politics and the economy, therefore blurring our understanding and appreciation of it,” he remarks, “art should still address all, including the masses. If it has to be exclusive, it will be exclusive to the thinking man.”

As has been prevalent throughout his works, Ed always offers a realistic and penetrating insight into the life of our time and of our forefathers'. He is an acute observer of society, and will invent something to forge a lasting expression of what he has seen or experienced. (“If, for example, I am depicting a warrior, I should depict it in its own rage – in its own reality.”)

And it is in this light that, more than just noticing it, we begin to understand Castrillo's work. Here we are talking of an artist who has been all over the world with international shows; who may, from commissions abroad, earn more than enough for two lifetimes; yet who nevertheless chooses to toil in educating the Filipinos about the power and potential of one's own mode of art. This is why, after having rubbed elbows with prominent foreign designers, painters and artists, he proudly proclaims what he has learned: “That Filipinos are one with all of them,” Ed says unflinchingly. And this is why, in being asked to name an artist whom he most admires, Castrillo diplomatically refuses to acknowledge a single one.

“Of course, I admire a lot of artists for their talent and good touches,” Ed explains. “But with this gift, I am carrying something bigger than myself; I am carrying national pride. I must challenge the Picassos and the Michelangelos and the other artists of the world, because I believe that the brilliance of the mind doesn't have any racial boundaries.”

Indeed, there is for Castrillo no other hero than truth. As the rest of us look up (literally and otherwise) to his sculptures, we are reminded of a man who, in opening new avenues for his hero, has become one himself.