Roy Veneracion

Veneracion grew up in Manila, Philippines, which had recently gained independence from the United States on July 4, 1946.

This event and the cultural change which followed became early inspirations for his work.

He attended elementary school at the Espiritu Santo Parochial School in Santa Cruz, Manila, a Catholic school run by Belgian nuns, where Veneracion earned early recognition for his artistic skills, and was recognized as an art prodigy.

He has stated that he has no memory of drawing in the manner of children of his age.

As a student, he was frequently tasked with decorating the blackboard on special occasions, creating biological and anatomical illustrations for his science classes, and drawing maps for geography subjects.

His early influence and mentor was his maternal uncle, Bienvenido Santos, who recognized his talent and informally coached him and his older brother on anatomy, proportion, chiaroscuro, linear perspective, and animal drawing.

Santos was a former student of Fernando Amorsolo and neo-Classicist Guillermo Tolentino, but he did not continue his artistic pursuits due to serving in World War II as an army officer.

Veneracion was later gifted an art book on figure drawing, an oil paintbox, and a boxed set of pastel colors by his uncle as his artistic abilities grew.

As a second-year high school student at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran in Intramuros, Veneracion was awarded the first prize in a student art contest for a satirical ink drawing he did on the subject of a professor and student's classroom interactions.

In his third year, Veneracion was commissioned by his older brother's class to make a series of full-body watercolor illustrations of all the characters in José Rizal's novels, Noli Me Tangere and El filibusterismo.

He received 35 pesos for each drawing, and the works were displayed along the corridors of the U. E. classrooms where he attended his senior years in high school.

Veneracion's father, Geronimo Veneracion II, was a lawyer, a summa cum laude graduate who passed the National Bar exams and received a Doctorate of Laws degree from the Universidad Central de Madrid during the reign of Francisco Franco.

His mother, Aida Santos, was the daughter of Bocaue Mayor Dominador Santos and Pacita Flaviano Santos.

His paternal grandparents were school masters: Geronimo Veneracion was the head teacher, and Antonia Ongtengco was the local school's principal.

They owned and managed farmlands in San Rafael, Bulacan, acquired from their savings as schoolteachers, and subsequently became rice traders.

Veneracion was the second eldest son in a family of four children.

His siblings are Geronimo III, Leticia, and Reynaldo.

He married Susan del Mar Lopez, a schoolmate from art school, and they have three children: Rachel, Ian, and Mikhail.

Veneracion pursued a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts.

He majored in advertising instead of painting due to his parents' concerns about the financial security of an art career.

He was popular with his fine arts professors because he performed well academically, and because of his advanced skills in classical media, including oil and watercolor still life painting and drawings of classical sculptures.

He was awarded first prize for his illustrations for his editorial design thesis.

Roy Santos Veneracion (born July 31, 1947) is a Filipino painter whose work explores a wide range of styles, techniques, materials, and subject matter.

He is considered one of the leading abstract artists in the Philippines and the precursor of contemporary Aesthetic Syncretism.

His work is associated with the Syncretism art movement in the Philippines and abroad.

In 1970, Veneracion married Susan Lopez, a fashion model and Binibining Pilipinas finalist, and had their first child, Rachel.

He found jobs in advertising agencies and worked in the creative department of PhilProm.

In 1972, after the declaration of martial law by President Ferdinand Marcos, all news media outlets were closed.

Veneracion was not fired, but chose to resign to pursue a career as an artist.

His work was soon displayed in group exhibitions at the Galerie Bleue in Makati.

In 1974, at the encouragement of some former classmates, Veneracion entered an art contest sponsored by the newly founded Miladay Art Gallery in Makati.

He did not win the competition, but was offered a personal exhibition of his work the same year.

This exhibition, and others that followed, quickly led to his prominence as an abstract expressionist.

In 1976, Veneracion, along with some former classmates, acquired travel permits to Europe, Canada, and the USA for his exhibition at the Philippine House in Mainz, Germany.

During the trip, they visited the Tate, the Louvre, Montmartre, and the Pegal districts, which is said to have increased his artistic exposure and insights.

They also visited other Filipino artists living and working in Paris, such as Nena Saguil, and put on multiple exhibitions while in the US.

In 1980 and 1981, Veneracion was made artist-in-residence of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), and was a frequent artist at the CCP Annual Exhibitions organized by museum director Raymundo Albano.

During this period, Veneracion developed the style of merging differentiated art principles with abstractions, and his work criticized the upcoming dictatorial regime and the arms race between the USSR and NATO.

In 1986, the Marcos dictatorship was dismantled by the People Power Revolution.

Veneracion made a painting symbolically depicting the events, and participated in the revolution with his wife and their children Rachel and Ian, and artist Noberto Carating.