About the Event
Joe Datuin is an artist renowned for his ability to use lightly visualized symbolism in stainless steel. Datuin’s circular abstractions have garnered renown and awards for demonstrating the unity of form and material. Datuin produces art that is accessible yet thought-provoking. Born in 1956 in Dagupan, Pangasinan, but raised in Tondo, Joe Datuin grew up fascinated with art. On family trips to Pangasinan, Datuin would observe his uncles who worked as signage painters for cinema announcements.
The passion for visual arts led Datuin to enrol in the Fine Arts program of University of Santo Tomas. Among his professors were modernists Angelito Antonio, Leon Pacunayen, Mario Parial, Leonardo Hidalgo, Cenon Rivera and Bonifacio Cristobal. Datuin was contemporary with social realist Jose Tence Ruiz and shared the same building with Thomasian sculptors Ramon Orlina and Eduardo Castrillo, who were studying Architecture.
At UST, Datuin proved himself a prolific student. He joined, and won, several art competitions while studying, culminating in the Benavides Award in 1977—an award named after the founder of UST and given to the best graduating students. Datuin juggled teaching evening classes as an instructor at UST while holding a day job at the Design Center Philippines where he designed products under the guidance of J. Elizalde Navarro and Arturo Luz.
In 1980, Datuin won a special award at the Moscow Olympic Games International Poster Design Competition. In the mid-’90s, Datuin completed an artist’s residency program under the Freeman AsianScholarship at the Vermont Studio in New York. What really landed Datuin on the international art map was the “Dancing Rings”—Datuin’s sculpture that won the Grand Prize in the 2008 International Olympic Committee Sport and Art Contest (Sculpture Category) at Lausanne, Switzerland.
Datuin’s recent international exhibitions include the “In Reverie of Form” at the Agora Gallery in New York (2015); “X and XI Florence Biennale” at the Fortezza Da Basso, Florence, Italy (2015 and 2017); and the “Anima Mundi International Art Festival” during the 57TH
Venice Biennale at the Palazzo Ca’Zanardi in Venice, Italy (2017).
In his latest series, Datuin brings to the fore the Japanese paper art of origami—rendering Japanese motifs in stainless steel.
You may visit Art Elements at SM Aura 3/F to see his works until the 15th of November 2018. For more information, kindly e-mail artelements@surfshop.net.ph