25/08/2022
ARTIST PROFILE
Artist : AURELIO “BOYAKS” PENA
ALTHOUGH this Davao artist is known for producing replicas of famous masterpieces for several years, Boyaks has set his palette aside for making replicas and started painting pure abstract works starting this year 2022--- an old passion he carried with him since his early days in college at the University of Mindanao.
Boyaks has no formal education in fine arts—all his skills from making reproductions of famous paintings to producing original abstract works are all natural, all God-given gift he carried since birth. Since he started painting early in college, he was never keen in “solo exhibits” and never wanted to be “famous” for his paintings.
Replicas of famous masterpieces that Boyaks painted in Davao included some of the famous works of Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Johannes Vermeer, Leonardo da Vinci and Pablo Picasso. Most of these replicas were bought by Davao art collectors who are passionate about French impressionist works.
Today, as this Davao replica artist churns out new original abstract paintings for exhibits together with his fellow artists at Tabula Rasa group, he is also busy producing new replicas of biblical paintings about Jesus last days before his crucifixion. Lately, Boyaks donated a large painting titled”Last Supper at the Upper Room” a revised version of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous work to the Redemptorist Church in Davao.
While Boyaks wanted to turn out his own original abstract works, he also looks to the old abstract masters of New York , Paris and France in the 1950s. Seeking some inspiration, he looks up to the ones who started the movement of modern contemporary art like Franz Kline, De Kooning, Verdier, Motherwell… just to end up doing his own original work on canvas.
07.26.22 AAP