Photo by PINGGOT ZULUETA

For a sculptor to be successful and to fulfill his artistic vision, he needs to tame whatever medium he plans on using. He needs to be in control so that no matter how stubborn and tenacious his materials are, the resultant artworks would nonetheless speak volumes of the artist himself and his impressions and whatever statements he wants to get across his audience. He needs to win an arduous and bloody battle over his medium so as to get his desired aesthetic—polished or intentionally dull, stylized or classical, abstract or figurative, minimalist or baroque. And when his materials, say earthy clay, pliant wood, aristocratic glass and marble, and thermal and malleable metal, bend willfully to the artist’s ministrations, a three-dimensional piece becomes anything but static. Life is breathed upon it. An impetus is seen in it.

In the case of 42-year-old sculptor Daniel dela Cruz whose early repertoire consists of a symphony of metal sculptures of pleasantly plump and generously proportioned women, his chosen medium has given him the freedom to witness not only the fruition of his vision but the realization of his age old dream of becoming a full-fledged artist.

An interloper to the art scene, dela Cruz, with over two decades of experience as lead décor designer for an export company, could not have opted to pick a more difficult medium for his first pieces of sculpture—metal. He decided to gamble on it for the purpose of exploration. Metal could be gritty and rigid for those who are inexperienced and acquiescent to those who are adept to it. But this bit didn’t stop dela Cruz from testing uncharted waters and an unfamiliar territory.

“I was already exposed to a lot of materials such as wood, ceramics, and resin because of the nature of my profession. I realized, however, that I did not want to work with materials I typically encounter in my line of work and are geared for mass production. So I chose to work with metal. One of the most difficult materials to work with in art, ensuring that each piece I make is one of a kind,” says dela Cruz.

Truth of the matter is, preferring metal over other common mediums meant dela Cruz also preferring to use a technique that he developed himself—one that involves wrestling with metal using his own hands, one that entails dela Cruz to solder and hammer bits and pieces of brass, copper, and lead and weld them together to get the complete forms he wants. No piece is bronze-casted in dela Cruz’s art-making process; rather, each piece is completely handmade. For the artist, this serves as a personal challenge —to see how far he can go, how soft he can make metal look, how much movement he can give to it. The technique is painstaking and meticulous, dela Cruz admits, but it seems that the artist would rather have it that way.

Dela Cruz however didn’t just throw himself into the art world without seeking words of wisdom from one of the masters in Philippine art. After creating his first sculpture titled ‘Kandungan,’ which incidentally is the title of his very first solo exhibition that portrayed women as literal laps of comfort and ease, dela Cruz sought advice from National Artist Arturo Luz. “Papasa ba? Makalulusot ba?” he asked Luz. To which the luminary Luz replied, “Yes, go ahead.” Dela Cruz could not have been happier. To please Luz and to pass his apparent high standard of aesthetics is more than enough for dela Cruz to move forward with his plans.  Luz also lectured dela Cruz on which material to use, it should be permanent, Luz said, and provided him his thoughts on size and scale.

And so two years ago, with the blessing of Luz, the University of the Philippines philosophy graduate debuted to the public ‘Kandungan’—an exhibition of full-figured women shaped into rocking chairs, benches, vessels, and musical instruments. The following year saw dela Cruz with ‘Parangal’—a show that did away from the rotund, quirky women he has already been kn own for to make way for his series of gaunt, still forms of Christ as tribute to God for letting him live his lifelong dream. Just six months after ‘Parangal,’ dela Cruz unveiled ‘Himig’ at the Ayala Museum. His third one-man exhibit showcased stunning and dynamic opuses depicting a woman’s musicality, her strength, her grace, her passion, and her beauty.

“Women, for me, are the most fascinating subjects because they have so many contradictions. Finding the harmony in all her contradictions and interpreting them in metal was a great joy as an artist,” dela Cruz says of ‘Himig.’  He adds, “I find the female form very beautiful. A woman’s body portrays a wide array of emotions, and I call them generously proportioned. The main reason they’re that way is because my focus is really a woman’s inner character, her strength and everything that goes beyond the physical. The size of the woman really shows that there is so much more substance to them than just being sexy.”

In his latest exhibition, dela Cruz focuses more on the stories behind each piece and the actions each portrays. Billed as ‘Passage,’ the exhibit takes on a more philosophical and spiritual road where dela Cruz’s metal sculptures epitomize man’s conscious movement and journey towards a purer level of being. The exhibit expresses man’s quest to go beyond mortality, to reach a higher plane, and to get closer to God. “The pieces reflect those things that we do to reach that state,’ dela Cruz reveals. “This is my statement as an artist who is trying to evolve with the passage of time and the accumulation of wisdom. I believe that there is a desire in every one of us to be free from the mundane, to acquire a sense of connection with the divine. This great journey forces us to go through countless passages as we search for the truth,” he comments.

By including in his sculptures the physical world around us, represented by geometrical shapes and planes, dela Cruz intentionally renders canvases on which he places his human figures, both male and female, to poses that “depict the eternal struggle for redemption.” In ‘Passage,’ dela Cruz whimsically captures the ethereal and profound qualities of life that suggest energy and repose, struggle and acceptance, leaving and coming home, and birth and rebirth. Here, the artist still portrays his trademark fleshy women but along with muscular men with corpulent butts.

Noticeable in dela Cruz’s anthology is his chrome-plated pieces and sculptures made of nickel, something he didn’t have in his previous shows. Dela Cruz says working with the two new metals proved laborious, what with the need to extensively sand and polish the pieces to achieve shine and the illusion of fluidity. His other copper and brass pieces, on the other hand, look like they belong to an antique museum because of the verdigris present in them. Verdigris is a common patina or green coating formed when copper or brass is weathered and exposed to seawater over a period of time. Dela Cruz achieves this ‘verdigris’ effect by deliberately treating his pieces with acids.

Asked how he starts a piece, dela Cruz says, “I start with a clay model, start sculpting the movements, and play around with the figures. A lot of times, the sculptures tell me what they are meant to be and tell me what they want to do.” And so far, his sculptures told him these: life is a journey towards enlightenment and that life is but a passage.

‘Passage’ opens on August 28 at the Artistspace of the Ayala Museum. and will run until September 10.