A calling for art
Jhun Tolentino has a talent for seeing the potential in ordinary things, even things the rest of us consider garbage. He also has a talent for creating art, and the combination results in inventive and environment-friendly creations.
Dubai-based Filipino creates striking artwork with discarded phone cards
Jhun Tolentino has a talent for seeing the potential in ordinary things, even things the rest of us consider garbage. He also has a talent for creating art, and the combination results in inventive and environment-friendly creations.
From used curtain hooks to empty fabric softener bottles and stacks of Friday magazines, Jhun tweaks and tinkers with discarded items until they conform to the vision he set out with. The results deserve superlatives: For someone who has never seen a real horse or falcon, his renderings of animals are majestic - and for someone who has never been formally schooled in art, his works are inspiring.
Jhun's latest medium is telephone cards. Designs of all shapes, sizes, depths and colours come to life on plywood boards, aided only by a penknife, a tub of Bison Kit glue and Etisalat's issue of phone cards.
And the results are beautiful: Multi-dimensional designs that come to life in a ballet of colour and patterns. Jhun's pieces are named after the Etisalat cards that go into them. A piece titled "The Door," for example, is made from the phone cards that depict traditional Arab doors. The "Mangrove Star" is made from hundreds of phone cards that display the mangrove tree and crafted in the shape of the North Star.
One particulary striking piece that occupies most of the Tolentino mantelpiece in their new Al Qusais apartment is made from the pink-orange-yellow Eid Mubarak cards issued by Etisalat. A substantial amount of Jhun's work relies on Etisalat. The colours, quality and variety of cards issued every few months are what initially drew Jhun's attention to this new medium.
After living and working in Dubai for 10 years, Jhun moved back to the Philippines in November 1999 with his wife, Gloria, and their baby daughter, Jewel Georgia. Within five months, Gloria's former boss coaxed her into returning to the Emirates to work again, and Jhun visited often, staying for months at a time. It was during one of these vacations - in March of this year - that the new art form began to develop.
