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The Balikbayan Artist

Eileen R. Tabios
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Farm-laborer-turned-artist Vance Igorta returns to the Philippines as a balikbayan after nearly fifty years in the United States. He is a member of the Manong Generation, the largest diaspora of Filipinos who worked physically demanding jobs, mostly in California’s agricultural fields.

Coming home to a country on the brink of becoming a dictatorship, Vance’s paintings shift from abstractions to didactic, political art to better reflect the rebellion that he eventually joins. Didacticism also facilitates his meditations on the impact of leaving his birthland to become a powerless Manong and then an impoverished artist of color in New York.

The Balikbayan Artist—inspired by and dedicated to Venancio C. Igarta (1912–2000), the real-life leading artist of the Manong Generation—takes readers from the early twentieth century to the present day when Vance Igorta’s art is being discovered anew. His legacy is validated for allowing his art to address the tensions of his time instead of keeping it solely entrenched in aesthetic concerns. The artist’s choice reflects what Vance Igorta learned as a voraciously self-educated person: that in circumstances where power corrupts, what makes anyone and everyone dangerous is love.

Published: Oct/2024

ISBN: 9789815233049

Length: 272 Pages

The Balikbayan Artist

Eileen R. Tabios

Farm-laborer-turned-artist Vance Igorta returns to the Philippines as a balikbayan after nearly fifty years in the United States. He is a member of the Manong Generation, the largest diaspora of Filipinos who worked physically demanding jobs, mostly in California’s agricultural fields.

Coming home to a country on the brink of becoming a dictatorship, Vance’s paintings shift from abstractions to didactic, political art to better reflect the rebellion that he eventually joins. Didacticism also facilitates his meditations on the impact of leaving his birthland to become a powerless Manong and then an impoverished artist of color in New York.

The Balikbayan Artist—inspired by and dedicated to Venancio C. Igarta (1912–2000), the real-life leading artist of the Manong Generation—takes readers from the early twentieth century to the present day when Vance Igorta’s art is being discovered anew. His legacy is validated for allowing his art to address the tensions of his time instead of keeping it solely entrenched in aesthetic concerns. The artist’s choice reflects what Vance Igorta learned as a voraciously self-educated person: that in circumstances where power corrupts, what makes anyone and everyone dangerous is love.

Buying Options
Paperback / Hardback
Amazon

Eileen R. Tabios

Eileen R. Tabios has released over 70 collections of poetry, fiction, art, essays, and experimental writings from publishers around the world. Translated into 13 languages, she also has edited, co-edited or conceptualized 15 anthologies which has involved hundreds of other poets and writers. Recent releases include an autobiography, THE INVENTOR; a poetry collection Because I Love You, I Become War; an art monograph, Drawing the Six Directions; a flash fiction collection (in collaboration with harry k stammer), Getting To One; a novel DoveLion: A Fairy Tale for Our Times (with a Filipino translation, KalapatingLeon, by Danton Remoto); two French books, PRISES (Double Take) (trans. Fanny Garin) and La Vie erotique de l’art (trans. Samuel Rochery); and a Spanish edition, Uno, dos, tres: Selección de Hay(na)kus (One, Two, Three: Selected Hay(na)ku Poems) (trans. Rebeka Lembo). Her body of work further includes a first poetry book, Beyond Life Sentences, which received the Philippines’ National Book Award for Poetry, as well as invention of the hay(na)ku, a 21st century diasporic poetic form; the MDR Poetry Generator that can create poems totaling theoretical infinity; the “Flooid” poetry form that’s rooted in a good deed; and the monobon poetry form based on the monostich. Her writing and editing works have received recognition through awards, grants and residencies. More information is at http://eileenrtabios.com