Where is Bong Mata?
Monday, July 28th, 2008 ~ 7:37 pm 
WHERE IS BONG MATA? | July 29 to Sept. 3, 2008 | West Avenue, QC
Artists Bert Antonio, Nilo Ilarde, Romeo Lee, Danny Paz, Dan Raralio, Tito Sanchez, Hubert San Juan, Soler, and Gerardo Tan get together for a unique purpose. That is, to find longtime colleague, Bong Mata, by mounting a group art exhibit dedicated to him, titled, Where is Bong Mata? On view from July 23 to September 3 at West Gallery (Quezon City) are the artists’ recent works, displaying the wide range of their creative talents.
Artist Nilo Ilarde has only nice words to say about Bong Mata. “We don’t know where he is [right now], but he was a brilliant student [back in school]. We would see him every five or 10 years, and I even told him to get in touch with Soler [who runs West Gallery]. The title of the exhibit is inspired by a self-portrait Bong Mata did in 1981, when he was still a student. Ilarde recalls that the title of that work was simply “Who is Bong Mata?” and that it was mounted on a bus stop in the UP campus. Ilarde knows that Mata eventually went into the field of advertising, though he was also a very good painter.
In 1980, they were all a part of a group exhibit entitled “Quiapo by 15,” in which the artists shared their visions and impressions of the popular destination in Manila. “He was an inspiration to all of us. We all saw him as the guy most likely to succeed,” adds Ilarde, who is doing mixed media collages for the exhibit. He hopes that Bong Mata, whom he hasn’t seen in eight years, will hear about the exhibit, and see what his friends are currently doing in the art scene.
