In my own opinion, anyone can learn how to draw and create beautiful and hyper-realistic pieces, but for an artist to also have a deep and hyper-reality view on the world and their creativity is what makes their artwork more stimulating. That is why true creative people belong in the same spectrum of being “weird” or having the polarities of either radiating positivity and light or being morose and tormented.
Artists do not just live their lives with their mind’s eye view facing straight forward and looking at their world in the first person. Sometimes, inspiration is got by “mindful” meditation or reflection—to be able to look at their lives and society with a bird’s eye view, observing societal trends and issues in a more transcendent way—and that in itself is mentally and emotionally challenging; but is the essential process before even having a tinge of hope in being able to create into reality one’s masterpiece.
Clyde Laudato is one of the most promising young artists of Davao City. He studied in the Philippine Women’s College of Davao’s Fine Arts in painting, under the tutelage of both local and international award-winning painter, Mr. Rodney P. Yap.
“I was born and raised in Butuan City and although the place is rich in cultural aspects, art wasn’t quite the trend, so I don’t have any creative influences during my childhood, but I became interested in art after seeing the works of Renaissance painters like Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo online. I admired them the most because I believe their works had some kind of soul, a movement, and dramatic imagery that is hard to forge or copy,” shared Clyde.
Ballpoint or pen and ink is the artist’s favorite medium, but he likes to experience and experiment on different art styles and mediums just as long as it meets his personal aesthetics—which are predominantly semi-realism. Clyde’s works are greatly predisposed by his admired contemporary artists just as much as his traditional and classical predecessors influenced his artistic discipline.
“In terms of art style and imagery, I have always been attracted to graphic works that contain black, white, and red palettes because of its strong and elegant images that can put emphasis and power on the subject matter and as a whole. Movies like “Schindler’s List”, ”Akira’, and movie posters and book covers of Mario Puzo’s novel “The Godfather”, Frank Miller’s comic book “Sin City”, and Shohei Otomo’s ballpoint drawings depict similar visualizations and pigments that suit my taste,” the artist states.
Clyde Laudato’s goal is to create more experimental and challenging bodies of work, obviously he is a very patient person and more particularly interested in aesthetics than narrative content, and believes quality over quantity. With his ballpoint artworks, his detailed rendering of subjects is applied through fine cross-hatching technique which takes longer to finish than painting.
In traditional paint and canvas, he practices “Alla Prima”, wherein, spontaneity and visible brushstrokes are applied without pre-mixing optical colors on the palette. “My subjects are predominantly people and their portraits because I think one image of a person is enough to represent many things that revolve around their lives—whether it’s personal, cultural, or philosophical—humans are fascinating. Also, there’s some kind of achievement when you can catch a specific emotion in a portrait and it is one of the hardest to do when it comes to drawing/painting,” the artist shares.
Clyde’s works, albeit having a soulfully darker context, tries to reflect the evolution of man and how his surroundings change his entire lifestyle and the development of each individual’s ideology as cultural and historical backgrounds deteriorate—truly showing that art really is a continuing process before each and another kind of art existence can emerge.
