“THE art of Leonilo “Neil” Doloricon was from the very beginning honed as a weapon for crafting society as part of a much larger social movement,” reads the statement of IBON Foundation on the passing of the noted artist and educator, who was a long-time member of the organization’s Board of Trustees. “To the end of his days and through all his works that outlive his passing, there was no other kind of art to be made.”
Doloricon, one of the country’s foremost social realists and professor and former dean of the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Fine Arts, passed away on Friday morning, July 16. He was 63.
In a tribute post, the UP College of Fine Arts’ Department of Visual Communication expressed their deepest sympathies and highest praise for the beloved faculty member. Doloricon was dean of the college from 1998 to 2001.
“Malalim ang aming pagdadalamhati at mataas ang pagpupugay sa mga alalala, kwento, hinaing, at pangarap ng aming iginagalang na propesor at kaibigan, Dekano Leonilo Ortega Doloricon. Isang mahusay na editorial cartoonist, artista ng bayan na lumalaban, gabay ng mag-aaral at haligi namin sa Kolehiyo ng Sining Biswal.”
Doloricon was born in Surigao del Sur in 1957. He finished his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Visual Communication and Masters of Arts degree in Philippine Studies at the UP Diliman.
The celebrated figure in Philippine arts was as decorated as an educator. Aside from being a Cultural Center of the Philippines’s Gawad Para sa Sining Biswal awardee and a 13 Artists Award recipient, this one-time chair of the Commission on Higher Education’s Committee on Arts and Humanities received the 1999 Jose and Asuncion Joya Professorial Chair; the 2004 Guillermo Tolentino Professorial Chair; and the Fernando Amorsolo Professorial Chair in 1994 and in 2011.
Meanwhile, in his piercing paintings and sharp illustrations, Doloricon went beyond the pedestrian social realist stereotype of depicting chronic injustices. His prodigious oeuvre over various media always aimed to sharpen our understanding of society, to spur action, being a champion of the idea that artists are agents of social change.
Doloricon was known for his inimitable editorial cartoons and rubber cuts that cut through current political events. He likewise tackled pressing issues through the written form.
For instance, in a review of Pete Jimenez’s exhibition at the Ateneo Art Gallery that Doloricon contributed to BusinessMirror in April, he wrote: “It’s not only the West Philippine Sea that has been grabbed by the Chinese; foreign investors are now allowed to own land and water properties in the country, courtesy of the Congress of the Philippines.”
“The whole Philippine Islands are now for sale,” Doloricon wrote. “Pete Jimenez has done his share in fulfilling his duties not only as citizen but as an artist to make a difference.”
“Prof. Neil passed away in the dark of night and just hours before dawn,” the IBON Foundation writes. “This was very much like his life’s work—darkly powerful but, always, politically hopeful and looking to the impending breaking of light.”
Image courtesy of Facebbook.com/UP-College-Offine- Arts-Department-of-Visual-Communication