Enderun Colleges brought together aspiring and established architects, interior designers, and multimedia artists in its annual College of Architecture and Design (CAD) Fiesta, held on May 19 at the Enderun Tent. In partnership with BluPrint, the symposium featured three renowned creatives to highlight the theme “Behind the Scenes: The Art of Space & Storytelling.” IDr. […]
Elmer Borlongan’s ‘Morning Rituals’ is an Exercise and Negotiation
Morning Rituals: 100 Paintings is the new exhibit from esteemed painter Elmer Borlongan at West Gallery in Quezon City. As the title suggests, the exhibit contains over 100 paintings, which are a variety of different portraits that Borlongan made since 2021.
Borlongan’s career as a painter and artist greatly impacted our contemporary art scene. First finding prominence in the 1980s, his paintings and murals of working-class Filipinos in Manila and Zambales captured the attention of people locally and worldwide.
Creativity in the Morning
For Morning Rituals: 100 Paintings, Elmer Borlongan allows himself the room and opportunity to experiment with spontaneity. He created a makeshift cola pen in 2021, and then started mixing his morning coffee with ink in 2023 in an attempt to create honest portraits of people.
“After breakfast, the dregs of coffee left in his cup are used to stain sheets of paper with a large Hake brush, a soft pliant brush used in dispensing large amounts of ink or paint,” Carina Santos wrote for the exhibit. “While the coffee is still wet on the paper, Borlongan begins to draw.”
Borlongan appeared to be inspired by different artists when it comes to the concept of creating 100 paintings with differing amounts of spontaneity. Among the inspirations listed by Santos are BenCab’s 101 drawings at the Luz Gallery, Hokusai’s One Hundred View of Mount Fuji, and the artist’s previous professor in UP, Roberto Chabet, who required students to finish 100 drawings by the end of the semester.
Rituals of Being
With these inspirations, the artist’s final products are these expressive, frenzied portraits of figures in various states of motion. At times, the coffee tint showers itself across the canvas of the final product. In other works, there’s a restraint in his approach as the coffee stains become the background for greater intrigue.
“The drawings in [Morning Rituals] are less controlled and more gestural than Borlongan’s oil paintings,” Santos said in their write-up. “[Though it is] still distinctly rendered in his visual language. The strokes in each drawing communicate and connect with the foundation of wash laid down on it, as though in constant negotiation as to what the final image will be.”
The paintings use a variety of subjects in different states of nudity as they pose for the artist. Some of them have a relaxed aura around them. Others look bloodied as the spills that surround their figures find themselves in the midst of a sinister movement.
But a commonality between these figures across the paintings is a sense of loneliness. Most of these figures appear to look ahead into the horizon in wonder, and whether they’re drowning in blood or just the stains, it feels like Borlongan painted figures filled with hopelessness.
Morning Rituals: 100 Paintings may have been an exercise on Elmer Borlongan’s part, but the works still carry a provocative look throughout that gives the work a unique sense of grime that grounds it to our contemporary art scene. These are works that find meaning in their motifs and consistency, exploring various themes of humanity without needing to engage in those meanings specifically.
Related reading: Elmer Borlongan’s extraordinary eye for the ordinary in our cities
Lamina: A Curated Lifestyle Fair was a three-day event held at City of Dreams Manila from May 2 to 4, spotlighting the latest trends in art, fashion, and design. A collaboration between ManilArt Foundation and the Bayo Atelier Foundation, the event features modern contemporary designs and art couture rooted in sustainability and heritage—offering functional, stylish […]
Our world stands at a critical juncture, facing the dual pressures of a construction industry reliant on carbon-intensive materials and a climate that grows more volatile each year. This reality necessitates a fundamental pivot in architectural thinking—a move towards designs that are both ecologically conscious and inherently resilient. In this urgent search for a new […]
It began with a single voice, unaccompanied, unornamented. On June 7, as the sun dipped toward late afternoon at Expo 2025 Osaka, a woman stepped onto the stage in full T’boli ceremonial attire. The venue: the Ray Garden, an airy, glass-clad hall designed as a gathering space for National Day performances—a “garden of rays”—a metaphor […]
In anticipation of the Festival des Architectures Vives (FAV) 2025 on June 10-15, WTA Architecture and Design Studio stands among the 10 finalists to transform iconic landmarks in Montpellier, France. Revolving around the theme of “La Gourmandise,” the San Juan-based team will showcase “The Value of Chocolate” at the 15th century private mansion Hôtel de […]
The Flower Eaters, an exhibition by Laki Mata at Space Encounters Gallery, performs a fascinating spin of an ancient story to make it fit in modern times. This new exhibit pinned its concept on the myth of the Lotus Eaters from Homer’s The Odyssey, with the artist utilizing it as both social commentary and as […]
Download this month's BLUPRINT magazine digital copy from:
Subscribe via [email protected]