BluSkreen Ballroom

Jose Tence Ruiz joined KAISAHAN (Unity) a throng of Filipino Social Realists in the late 1970s and has since then exercised, through a panoply of media, the view that proper art engaged and reflected contemporary milieu. He has done painting sculpture, installation, performance, digital media and worked 20 years as an editorial cartoonist, 7 of which,1988 to 95, were spent at the Singapore Straits Times. During his Singapore sojourn, he joined Artists Village along with Tang Da Wu, Vincent Leow, Zailani Kuning, Amanda Heng, Lee Wen, Ahmad Abu Bakr, to name a few.

His latest Ballrom series depicting the French Cotillion and Marie Antoinette-like damsels reconfigured as a trope for the absurd greed and profligacy practiced among some of the unsavory elites of postcolonial Southeast Asia. In light of the recent collapses in the World Economic Grid, these reprehensible characteristics have proven to be globally pandemic. Such is the early 21st century, so far, according to Tence Ruiz.

Jose Tence Ruiz took two courses at the UST College of Fine Arts and Architecture, enrolling in BFA Advertising in 1973 and graduating with Honors with a BFA in Painting in 1979. He was Editor-in-Chief of Vision Magazine in 1976. He has since been involved in multi-media Visual activities such as Set Design, Publication Design, Book Illustration, Media presentations, Teaching, Editorial Illustration, Painting, Art for Advocacy, Sculpture, Installation and Performance Art. He is an ARAW ng Maynila Awardee for New Media (2003), one of the few Five Time AAP Award Winners (1979 – 2005) as well as the only Filipino to win the Bratislava Biennial Award for Children’s Book illustration in Czechoslovakia (1982). He has been invited to the 2nd Asia Pacific Triennial for Contemporary Art in  Brisbane , Australia ,(1996) The Havana Biennial in Cuba (2000), The Kwangju Biennial in Korea (1999) as well as the preparatory commission for the 1st Singapore Biennial(2004). His works from the 70s and the 80s are now featured in Telah Terbit: Asean Art of the 70s one of the major exhibitions of the 2006 Singapore Biennial.

He did editorial illustrations for the many Manila based publications as well as the Singapore Straits Times and InterPressService Asia-Pacific which served Manila, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, India and Singapore (1977 -2004). He currently works as a multi-media artist and an independent writer/consultant/curator for such Institutions as the Cultural Center of the Phillippines, The National Commission for Culture and the Arts, The Pasig City Arts Museum, Neo-Angono Collective and The Ateneo Art Gallery.

Jose Tence Ruiz, known by many of his friends as “Bogie”, is considered one of a group of forerunners and icons of social realism in the active art community in the Philippines. This is an exhibition not to be missed by collectors, enthusiasts and the academia alike.

Roberta Dans

Director

Artesan Gallery + Studio

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