Davao-based artist Kublai Millan professes that he has this 'crazy will' to create things.

Meet Kublai Millan (born Rey Mudjahid Ponce Millan)—a Davao-based visual artist whose urgent need to create has rendered his pieces reflective of his rich heritage. Known for his larger-than-life reinforced concrete sculptures in significant points all over Mindanao, Kublai personifies an unusual artistic spirit that thrives in simplicity and in solitude. Setting him apart from a sea of creatives [sic] is his decision to forge a creative path south of the country, in his hometown, instead of battling it out here in Manila. His was a risky choice, one might say, but for Kublai, it was something that he was impossibly passionate about.

“I’ve been doing art since my childhood days in Tagum, Cotabato, and Kidapawan, pero walang nagtuturo sa akin. The closest that I could get as an example of training is a charcoal portraitist in Davao,” Kublai says. “Sabi ko one day, if and when I pursue the field of art, babalik ako sa mga lugar ng childhood ko to be able to teach children like me who are interested in art.”

And return Kublai did. After finishing visual communications at the University of the Philippines in Diliman and working for an advertising agency for a couple of years, Kublai left the city and flew to Mindanao to pursue his art and share it with his people.

The result is Kublai immersing with his fellow Mindanaoans and finding inspiration from their culture.

The upshots of his total engagement in seeking the soul of his motherland are his sculptures—the large-scale Durian opus at the Davao International Airport, the Twin Hearts of Jesus in the Tagum Cathedral, a Christ monument in Lanao, the 100 sculptures of children in Davao’s People’s Park, and the 50 native people sculptures in Bukidnon’s Overview Park.

“My process involves getting to know the community, the soul of the place. ‘Yun ang inilalabas ko sa art ko and I love doing that. Research is very important in my process,” Kublai shares.

The soft-spoken Kublai also admits that he likes the art-making process more than the actual art that he produces. He believes that the higher meaning an artist is constantly searching for in his or her art neither rests on the artist’s good and skilled hands nor in the ability of the artist to produce just aesthetically pleasing pieces. “I don’t like the idea of an artist making things just for the sake of making them,” he reveals. And so Kublai’s repertoire is studded with individual works that breathe with life, with Mindanao’s lost history, myths, and her religion.

But while the south is replete with Kublai’s three-dimensional art, Manila has been haplessly wanting. It’s a good thing now, though, that Kublai is bringing a visual taste of his craft in the city via his first foray into painting. Titled ‘probinSAYA: A Summation of Life in the Province,’ the artist’s first one-man exhibit boasts of 75 4x4 feet acrylics on canvases that portray Mindanao’s happy and simple rural life. Rendered in bright hues of red, orange, blue, and green, the paintings speak of scenes that depict the local worker, the native dance, the family, children’s games, indigenous musical instruments, and even Mindanao’s farm animals.

Aside from the artist’s use of a very lively palette, one can also see Kublai’s affinity with geometric patterns and elements. These fancifully combined patterns and shapes make up his forms and figures. Noticeable in his works is the way these shapes intersect and overlap to make quirky-looking and contemporary representations of his subjects. Swirls also dominate his pieces and make for interesting accents.

“The exhibit is all about capturing the joy of the people in Mindanao and the easy lives that they lead,” he explains. “It’s saying that there may be major problems in the world but where I live and go, people are happy and content.

‘probinSAYA' will open at the Senate Gallery on December 1 and runs until the first week of December at Gallery Big, Nicanor Garcia St. Bel-air Village, Makati City.