Imao, the National Artist

E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Imao, the National Artist
Sunday, 07 09, 2006

Siya ang kauna-unahang kapatid nating Muslim na nagkamit ng....This is how we intone with beaming pride our announcement whenever one of our brothers down South achieves a distinction that translates to a national pride. This kind of rather patronizing recognition come few and far between; Christians, by their superiority in numbers, naturally garner more awards or accomplish more than any other religious or ethnic group.

Thus we heard this said over and over again with the induction of Abdulmari Imao into the Order of National Artists. To date, there are 57 inductees to that elite circle and Imao, a Tausug by ethnicity, is the first Muslim.

For a Muslim, Imao can boast of many other firsts: TOYM Award for the Arts; Presidential Merit Award for the Arts; Gawad CCP Para sa Sining; featured artist at the New York Museum of Modern Art; UP art scholar; Schmidt-Mundt Fulbright scholar at the University of Kansas. Many more.

Imao has made a name as a sculptor and painter. His works now cost almost an arm and a leg, whereas when he first burst into the art scene in 1962, many self-appointed cognoscenti dismissed them as tawdry Muslim kitsch. Now, they must be ruing their lack of foresight for not snapping up his pieces which at the time were bargain-sale cheap.

The National Artist Citation eloquently captures the Imao persona: ABDULMARI ASIA IMAO, sculptor, painter, photographer, ceramist, documentary film maker, cultural researcher, writer and articulator of the Philippine Muslim art and culture, is a versatile and prolific Muslim Filipino artist. His sculpture of diverse mediums and styles, as well as his refined and innovative rendering of indigenous art images and motifs are testimonies of his highly developed aesthetic sensibility, ingenuity and wide-ranging experience as an artist.

“His expertise in brass-making learned in his advanced sculptural studies abroad has helped the indigenous communities, particularly the Maranaos, Maguindanaos and T’bolis, improve on their brass-casting technology by introducing innovations to increase efficiency and minimize wastage of precious resources, the same expertise he extended to our Asian neighbors Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia through the support of concerned United Nations agencies.

“As a Muslim Filipino artist immersed in the rich and colorful traditions of the Muslim south, Imao’s adaptations of the indigenous forms into modern art idioms have infused contemporary Philippine art and culture with uniqueness, authenticity and genuineness of expression.

“Through his works the indigenous ukkil, sarimanok and naga motifs have been popularized and instilled in the consciousness of the Filipino nation and other peoples as original Filipino creations. Their integration into the Philippine art vocabulary has made more promising our aspiration of fostering harmonious intercultural relations among the Muslim, Lumad and Christian co-citizens. Imao the artist is also Imao the cultural catalyst, serving as ambassador of goodwill promoting intercultural understanding and mutual respect.

“With his large-scale sculptures and monuments of Muslim and regional heroes and leaders gracing selected sites from Batanes to Tawi-tawi, Imao has helped develop among cultural groups trust and confidence necessary for the building of a more just and humane national society.

“His dedicated art career of over four decades, made brilliant by the several national and international awards and prizes he received, is a source of pride and inspiration not only of his fellow Tausugs and other Muslim groups but of the Filipino people as a whole regardless of ethnicity, religion or creed.”

Imao’s paintings reflect his roots: the graceful symmetry of fishes and the sarimanok, the stolidity of the Muslim warrior, the grace of the Muslim woman amid cultural restrictions.

His sculptures, whether in brass, wood, or resin, are not massive, but their dimensions evoke strength, a statement of the indomitable character of the Muslim. The lines draw one’s attention to the apex of the piece — the dome of a mosque, the beak of the sarimanok, or the spear of the warrior — and lets one’s gaze wander in wonder to every nook, cranny and convolution, until one is drawn to the depth of the eyes of the fish, or mesmerized by the brilliance of the dome.

Imao’s religiosity often shines through in his works, particularly in his calligraphic Allah series, where each brush stroke is a loving act of honoring the Deity.

Art has been kind to Imao. He has gone a long way from the time he came to Manila as a stowaway from Sulu..He now lives comfortably in Marikina, where he boasts of a home that has given him endless inspiration for the many art pieces he makes — or hie off to his Shangri-La in Sulu when the Muse seizes him.

Imao takes pride in his family. Wife Grace, by osmosis, has become an artist herself, with her canvases of butterflies. Eldest son Toym, an architect by profession, now has made a name for himself as sculptor and painter. Son Joey is doing well in New York as a dentist by day and a portrait artist by night. The portraits made by Joey adorn many of our government offices. Still another son, Sajid, has made his mark in the arts. Youngest son Kim is a graphic artist. Many of his grandchildren now exhibit the artistic gene.

Listen to the writer Abraham Sakili as he waxes poetic over Imao: “Abdulmari, the sea-born artist of Sulu archipelago, has combined in his name the Arabic abd (servant) and the Spanish mar (sea) which when connected would read as “servant of the sea.” Indeed, Abdulmari’s experience of a journey across the ocean of life has proven that the beauty and wisdom of living harmoniously on this stormy sea is living the life of ‘diversity in unity.” This, the life story and art world of Imao…has revealed. In trying times…and cognizant of the need to strengthen the cultural bond among the tri-people communities — Muslims, Christians and Lumads — a cultural catalyst like Imao is certainly a gem.”

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