By Reuben Ramas Canete

The Circle of Life stands as a singular achievement in thematically rearranging Philippine figurative art in the contemporary period into a recognizable, consistent and ineffably specific manner of encoding social reality, material depiction and the pursuit of a life worth living as set in the Visayan environment.

Jun Impas’ ability to deliver this representation of a universal cycle from beginning to end, along with his famed portraits, also cues us to the rich possibilities of looking beyond the straight-jacketed confines of metropolitan art as “the only one that matters.”

Indeed, by invoking both the traditions of the past while situating it in the spaces and visualities of the present, Jun Impas assures us that the transfer of modernity from city to country is not one-sided and passive from the ruralite’s viewpoint. For if we do have to take a look at how art fares as the seasons change, we cannot but look elsewhere when the center decays, and the country blooms. That in itself is a realization, that the life of art, like that of human existence, also follows a cycle.

The Circle of Life is the 6th Solo exhibition of Jun Impas in the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, BSP Complex, Roxas Boulevard, Manila from May 14 to 30, 2011.