Master Artist inspired Cebu next-gen artists with Shell NSAC Art Interact

December 19, 2022December 19, 2022 Migo V. 0 Comments

Shell NSAC Art Interact: Master Artist New inspired next-gen Cebuano talents with new art platforms, mediums

*Jan Leeroy New, Shell NSAC 2004 and 2006 2nd-place winner for Sculpture, taught students how to create wearable art installations from plastics at the Kabilin Center in Cebu City on December 10, 2022.*

The 55th Pilipinas Shell’s National Student Arts Competition (NSAC) and its face-to-face Art Interact events throughout 2022 provided venues where master artists built the next generation of talents in Metro Manila, Bacolod, and Cebu.

Evoking the year’s “Sulong Sining” theme, Pilipinas Shell Vice President for Corporate Relations, Serge Bernal, encouraged the participants to use the uniting power of art to charge forward by showing who you are, what you value, and what you envision through art. During the culminating event at the Ayala Museum, he thanked the young artists for showing that creativity and art are alive, well, and growing in the country.

Shell NSAC alumni who won in various categories that span generations mentored the students about their skills, craftsmanship, and how to succeed as professional artists.

Shell NSAC alumnus Jan Leeroy New conducted workshops for the Bacolod and Cebu Virtual Art Interact events. He won 2nd place in the Sculpture category in Shell NSAC 2004 and 2006. He is a celebrated artist whose installations have won acclaim in New York, Paris, Dubai, Singapore, and other major global centers.

“The Creative Industry has now opened new avenues for artists. It’s expanding due to the internet, globalization, and it has diverse into so many mediums, channel, and platforms as compared before that it’s limited to art spaces and painting,” said Master Artist Jan Leeroy New.

The longest of its kind in the country, Pilipinas Shell’s annual NSAC has served as a platform to celebrate the accomplishments of young visual artists and open to them various opportunities in the art world. It has built a legacy of developing the local art scene by creating an opportunity for young talents to showcase their creativity regionally and nationally.

Cebu artists

The final Art Interact was held at the Kabilin Center in Cebu City last December 10, 2022. In the Cebu Aliens workshop, New showed creative ways to reuse and recycle plastics to create wearable art pieces.

This approach stemmed from New’s youth where, as a student at the Philippine High School for the Arts, he learned how to be resourceful. “I would go to recycling centers when I had no sources” for his art, he reminisced. “My first paintings were of fishermen and farmers.” Later on, though, he learned that “art can be in a public place” and not just inside the traditional art galleries.

He advised the more daring Cebuano artists who might follow this path that “the public may have their own interpretation of their work. All you can do is make the most of how you do it, and make sure you understand what you’re doing.”

Clodoveo Nacorda, Commissioner, Historical and Cultural Affairs Commission, thanked Pilipinas Shell for mounting the event and addressed the students, “Hone your art, perfect your style, innovate, innovate, innovate—and you will join the ranks of the Cebuano masters.

Haidee Emmie Palapar, Head of The Kabilin Center, looked forward to the future, “We hope that this affair will be productive and enlightening to our young artists. We cannot wait for this to be a consistent and regular activity at The Kabilin Center.”

The 55th Shell NSAC was co-sponsored by McDonald’s, Grab, Bakuna Hero Health and Medical Services, and Phirst Park Homes Inc. Partners such as Anima Art Space, Art Elaan Gallery, Ayala Museum, Blanco Family art Museum, Iloilo Museum for Contemporary Art, Modeka Creative Space, Museo Iloilo, Orange Project, Stuart Gallery, and The Kabilin Center of the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc. played a vital role in the success of the 55th NSAC.