Paul Hilario

Paul Hilario is a Filipino painter in whose works in the figurative expressionism genre. His inspiration to create is to visualize information, issues, contradictions, scenarios, events, fallacies and realities of life. His subject matter can be anything from personal, social, historical and political. Most of the time, he uses symbolism and prefers to create a scene of disconnections between individual images and items within the canvas. His point of view reconnects the images. He likes to make stories and prefers to use themes that spans the emotional spectrum. He was influenced by the paintings of post-impressionist Vincent Van Gogh and Filipino modernist Vicente Manansala, until he stumbled upon the Marcel Antonio virtual school of art. Much encouraged at school, he examined the Byzantine era (330 to 1453) to learn old master techniques and added his own signature. Aside from the Philippines, his works have found their way to collectors in Australia, Canada, Dubai, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Early life

He considered himself to be a muralist at age four. He used to draw on apartment walls whenever his father Frank did not have enough scratch papers to give him. His father was a writer and editor. TV shows that captured his attention, such as the Land of the Lost, inspired him to draw dinosaurs. Other shows drove him to draw what he saw, including animals, cars and people.

During his primary school years, he was invited to draw for the school and was a consistent winner in inter-school art competitions. He only knew how to use a pencil so his drawings were never colored. He remembers one drawing of Filipino national hero Jose Rizal, displayed in front of the school during Rizal Day. He made his own comic book heroes and comic books when he was in sixth grade. He rented them for 25 centavos to his school mates and sold some for 5 pesos in 1984.

He took the entrance tests for the Philippine High School for the Arts (PHSA). Only 10 visual arts scholars were accepted out of the hundreds that applied. He was waitlisted, but never accepted. He studied at UP Rural High School in Los Baños, Laguna.

He majored in Microbiology at the University of the Philippines Los Baños.

Style

Before settling in as a figurative expressionist, Paul used an eclectic style drawing on impressionism, fauvism and cubism. Most of his works at that time had impressionist backgrounds, while the light and composition were somewhat cubist and the characters were cartoonish. Most galleries label this work as Naive art.

He doesn't like to paint using references and prefers to develop his own images using a very bright palette. He uses complementary colors heavily and adopts moods such as cool or warm as a guiding principle. Early on he favored deep violet over black.

Currently he enjoys creating works using a modified verdaccio technique.

List of exhibitions

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

Artworks

• Fraus, Paul Hilario, Acrylic on Canvas 24" by 30", 2012

• Metanoia and Sequela, Paul Hilario Acrylic on canvas 48" by 36", 2013

• A Romantique Cliche, Paul Hilario Acrylic on canvas, 36" by 24", 2013

• The Veneration of Counterfeit Gods, Paul Hilario, Acrylic on canvas, 48" by 36", 2013