Dennis Capellan
May 29 – June 8, 2021
Art Underground
814 Balagtas St., Barangay Addition Hills, 1550 Mandaluyong
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Dennis Capellan’s art practice is rooted in using the connotations of animals to express his interest in life, the human condition, forces of nature, and everything beyond. Each creature brings an individual meaning and inference to his work, many also bring history. Capellan uses these to describe his own narrative, whether it is a curiosity about origins, an investigation of the present, or a musing about the afterlife.
Capellan’s individual works are characterized by tightly framed portrait images of precisely positioned anthropomorphic forms. The images are strange yet beautiful, thrilling and frightening, and hinted at greater hidden possibilities outside of everyday consciousness and comprehension.
The artworks have a push and pull of discomfort– an aesthetic intrigue and a fine line of humor and delicate absurdity. They resonate on different levels: the subtle humor acts as a salve, allowing Capellan to enjoy the process; but more importantly, they have the ability to capture the imagination of his curious audience. The exhibition explores the modern concept of nature: a source of serene nostalgia, balanced with the visceral experience of ‘wildness’ as remarkably alien and different.
[Text by Grace Ng]
About the Artist
Dennis Capellan, (b. 1970) is a multidisciplinary artist hailing from Masbate City and currently residing in Makati City. As a specimen of Generation X, Capellan has arguably been doodling for over five decades. Inescapably influenced by MTV, comic books, and ad men such as Bill Bernbach, Capellan has done everything from vandalizing walls of his parent’s home in Masbate with crayons, to pushing the graphic-art boundaries in the garment industry, to illustrating werewolf panels for American graphic novels and laying award-winning advertising campaigns in the Philippines.
As an artist, Dennis Capellan has been participating in various group exhibitions around the metro since 2019 and has received accolades from the Advertising industry’s award-giving bodies such as the Philippine Advertising Congress Araw Awards and Catholic Mass Media Awards for his contribution in the field.
Capellan’s Illustrations depict human emotions and experiences through anthropomorphism. Its playfulness quality reveals how the unimaginable and unreasonable can become sensible and absolute. His oeuvre aims to expose human folly and intends to connect the viewer to the untainted spirit that lies within.
