Cover Photo By Gaby Bacani
Cover Photo By Gaby Bacani.

Look back and beyond with the top 3 entries of “Horizons: Memento”


Reminiscing memories of not too long ago, “let us rediscover the moments we hold dear” with the top three entries for this year’s Horizons.


By Chenelle Navidad | Thursday, 6 May 2021

The Benildean Press Corps showcases its latest installment of the award-winning art and design folio, Horizons. With the theme “Memento,” this year’s submitted entries focused on treasured memories worth revisiting. Widening the platform for the Benildean student body, artists of the top three best works submitted get to tell their story behind their craft.

 

Here are the exclusive interviews that truly brought us back to memories we may or may not have yet experienced.

 

TOP 1: “Manila” by Marion Cortez, ID 117 (AB-MMA)

“Attempt. Manila. Feeling.” These are the three most significant words that Multimedia Arts (MMA) student Marion Cortez used to describe his entry for Horizons: Memento titled “Manila,” in an interview with The Benildean

 

For Cortez, Manila is a place of highlights that are scattered all over. A somewhat good thing that comes out from its busy streets which are familiar to him, the Rizal Monument was the perfect epitome of how he saw Manila.

 

Working on “Manila” for around nine hours in a span of two weeks, Marion said he sketched some ideas before finally capturing a feeling to base the piece on rather than an accurate sketch of the monument. “I’ve only been there once, and it was because of school work so I didn’t really get to enjoy it for what it was. Life in Manila can get really busy and fast and it’s hard to just take time to pause and appreciate what’s there. I really wish I went there more often, knowing that I don’t have to do anything but just be there.”

 

Cortez translated his memory of the busy city in dark hues of red, orange, and purple in this piece with the famed Rizal Monument being the main focus. He also said that it was his first time to use his art style of “weird colors and textured brush strokes” on an environment, as he usually created portraits. 

 

Having grown up outside of Manila, Cortez explained that he felt that the city was relatively more polluted, crowded, and hotter compared to what he is used to, thus painting a picture through that perspective.  

 

“I just thought a dark purple would be perfect for the griminess in the concrete and oranges would be for the heat and rust. These two colors also just work well together in my opinion. I had to commute a lot in and out of Manila, so I spent hours everyday in hot crowds and heavy traffic. But despite that, I still remember it as a place that I sorely miss,” he said.

 

When asked if nostalgia is a powerful feeling for him, he added by saying “I don’t think any feeling or idea is inherently powerful, positive, or negative. But it's useful to try to express or articulate these feelings to understand ourselves better.” 

 

Should normalcy come back sometime after the quarantine, he is “open to whatever life will replace this pandemic. It might not even be the same Manila when I get back to it but I’m still looking forward to it.”

 

See more of Marion Cortez’s work on his Instagram page (@noir.ion).

 

TOP 2: “Tea Time!” By Reese Calimbas, ID 119 (AB-ANI)

In contrast to Cortez’s dark color palette, AB-ANI student Reese Calimbas’ homage to a childhood memory is told in what looks to be something out of a storybook, with light and pastel colors in their entry “Tea Time!” 

 

As stated in the piece’s title, “Tea Time!” takes us into one of the many “imagined worlds” that Reese has made over the course of their childhood. Choosing this memory to paint into a picture was one wherein Calimbas felt it was formative yet ordinary. The process was self-reflective on their part, and they said that they knew it was the right memory.

 

Being a collector of stuffed toys and plushies, Calimbas had actually started collecting when they were six years old, which they also mention is the same age as the character they've placed in this art piece.  “I was always carrying a teddy bear with me, and would spend lots of time with it doing mundane things like playing in the playground, watching TV, etc. It was like my best friend,” they said.

 

When asked about the three words that they would use to describe their work, they said that it was, “Imaginative. Magical. Sweet.“ As happy and light-hearted this piece is, it is imperative to acknowledge that these fantasy worlds started from the time that they felt they were a “weird kid who was always too loud."

 

“My childhood toys were a way for me to feel accepted and comfortable in who I was and made me realize that I don’t need to change for acceptance. The friends I deserved were ones who would love and accept me wholeheartedly,” they said.

 

Reese also shared that this piece was a homage to this specific memory of their childhood, “When I was younger, I genuinely believed that my toys were alive and these worlds were real, as I am sure many people with imaginary friends and landscapes did. I made this piece to be thankful that I had this source of comfort for myself at such a young age in a time where acceptance was integral to my growth. Even though as I grew older, I learned to let go of them and forge bonds with people. know that without this, I wouldn’t have learned to accept that being “weird” was nothing wrong about me.”

 

In “Tea Time!”, Calimbas exhibited a form of escapism that they found cathartic and comforting, something that they had explained with the words, “Even though my toys weren’t actually alive, I gave them life and the imaginative stories I created are all part of the very-real mind I have.”

 

And as nice it is to remember the warm feelings brought out by similar childhood memories, they emphasized that people should still always look forward and be ready to make new memories.

 

For more of Reese’s art, head on to their Twitter (@chamom0mile) and check out their LGBTQIA+ magical-boy comic “Sadya” on PenLab.ink.

 

TOP 3: “I Miss the Little Things” by Tirza Ratilla, ID 119 (AB-MMA)

For MMA student Tirza Ratilla, it was a perfect opportunity to send her entry “I Miss the Little Things” to Horizons: Memento as she had already created this piece at the start of quarantine in 2020.

 

Like everyone else, she had thought that [the lockdown] would only last for three months, “I was really missing my friends and I really wanted to draw something for them, like give them a love letter, something that was personal to us. That’s why I drew that memory of us walking up the stairs.” Almost a year later, having adjusted with quarantine and online classes, the art piece that she created was really fitting with this year’s Horizons.

 

The three words that she would use to describe this piece are: “Personal. Romantic. Snapshot.” 

 

It’s a very picturesque memory that she and her whole barkada share fondly. “This is like a certain scene of our lives. At one point, this is who I was, this was who my friends were at some point of our lives that is gone now,” she explained.

 

Missing and remembering her friends’ personalities and details was both therapeutic and cathartic for Ratilla, “Nalalabas ko talaga ‘yung feeling of missing my friends, and missing my old life. I was able to forge that out into something tangible,” she added.

 

Interestingly enough, “I Miss the Little Things” was a step out of her usual subjects when creating art. With a penchant for fantastical original characters and fanart, Ratilla says that she just really wanted to get out that feeling of missing her friends, “I never drew real life people, not even myself nor my friends, [...] but I thought something simple would reflect the message. My style is quite paint-ish, but this one I made it more realistic, and a bit cleaner.” 

 

And she did end up drawing herself with her friends in this piece. She points out that she is the one with the rainbow backpack, back when she still had darker skin and shorter hair. Moreover, although they had distinct looks, the art was not meant to be a caricature of her friends that boxed them into one single personality. 

 

“What I noticed about us, we all look like we’re all from different cliques. But for some reason, we get along well together. ‘Yung best friend ko with the purple hair na kausap ko sa piece, we joke about it a lot, she looks like a “mafia girl boss” or like a super scary goth na super nice. The one with the Nintendo is the “pretty girl na kind of a bully,” and I say that endearingly. I think the next one is the “straight-A student na pinakamatalino.” Then, there's the photography student who wears pretty androgynous clothing. There is also this girl who has this sweater na lagi niyang suot, and it’s iconic, it makes her look so fuzzy. And ‘yung sunod, she wears Asian-ish kimono.”

 

The art piece is a portrait of their “slice of life” routine of having classes from the ninth floor to the tenth floor of the School of Arts and Design (SDA) Campus. In her words, “We’d take the stairs with the view. Sometimes it’d be sunset when we took the stairs. We really like the place. Sometimes [tumatambay] kami dito.

 

A lover of anything simple and mundane, she captures in her entry how she views normal memories with her friends, and she lets everyone try to see how great it is.  

 

“As people we tend to look forward. We’ll live when we’ve achieved X, Y, Z. I personally believe life happens now. Life doesn’t peak when I’m successful or famous. Life peaks now when I’m travelling with my dad at night, and it's raining and he tells me stories about his childhood; when me and my friends decide to splurge a little more at Army Navy; when my blockmate invites me to a gig to an artist she really likes but I’ve never been to before; [and] when my high school friends all congregate at our condo and laugh about things together. This is all mundane, there’s nothing special about it, but the fact that it's happening and it's only happening now makes it special.”

 

Want to see more of Tirza’s art? Check out her Instagram and Twitter (@torzatilla). For art commissions, you can contact her through her torzatilla@gmail.com.

 

Make sure to catch these artists’ creations and more with Horizons: Memento, out now! 

 

This article was originally published on April 27, 2021 at The Benildean's Facebook page. Click here to view the Facebook post.

 

 

 

 

Last updated: Thursday, 6 May 2021