Like no other, there is a creative genius putting up extraordinary works around Metro Manila's vibrant art scene with nothing but a number series as their name
If you clicked this article to know the real name and identity of 0270501, you'd be disappointed. The artist aims to be a non-character, using a set of numbers for easier identification and attribution to their works. However, the artist prefers that we, the viewers, find their art as it is and relate it to our own shared consciousness and musings, emotions, and stories.
The first time I came across their works at 1335/Mabini, during the gallery's vernissage for the 2022 Art Fair Philippines, I was intrigued. Not just by the elusive identity of the artist but more of their works that seem to be blotches of inks from afar. Looking at them closely and seeing the name cards, I was entranced by the mere courage of the artist to use a complicated set of mediums on paper. I honestly have never seen anything like it, and I believe that I will never find a similar approach. If I do, I know it wouldn't be as daring, evocative, expressive, and grand as the masterpieces of 0270501.
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"By not creating this image of who the artist is, this becomes the motif—a counter-culture in the world of the Internet where connectedness is expected and more, so governed and surveyed," The artist said to Tatler. "The disassociation to the work leads to a more realistic relationship between the viewer and the artwork," they added. Indeed, the coup creates more of a deeper neural connection to viewers because they are now free to associate their own perspectives with their own experiences, as explained by 0270501.
Modern Manila—brimming with news on the war on illegal drugs, sectors of society opposing the government, and ongoing war with ourselves—is a key factor why 0270501 delved into the arts. "It is impossible to paint the kind of paintings that are primarily present like flowers, nudes, beautiful Filipiniana [dresses], as the artist explores ideologies, beliefs, and concepts rather than form or representational art," 0270501 explained. This conscious rejection of focusing one's art on objects has given the artist an engagement with the invisible world of ideas and allows their audience to come up with potential meanings of their own in relation to the present.
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