Pages as exhibition platforms:
Publication histories of BoyD’s art
@ito.lisa
It is not at all surprising that the multitalented Federico “boyD” Dominguez, longtime Krus na Ligas resident and lowkey friend to political stripes of the Philippine left, has his art on covers to inside pages of more than a hundred publications, possibly more.
BoyD’s lifelong work in graphic design and illustration is a logical turn of intersections. He started creating posters, and paintings in the late 1970s. First studying Architecture at the University of Mindanao in Davao and ending up at UP Diliman’s College of Fine Arts as a Visual Communication major in the 1980s, boyD found himself applying skills in drafting and design to document stories and struggles of the common folk.
Starting a family with a community development professional in Diliman, the former government draftsman assigned to remote indigenous communities around the Philippines sought to capture the repressive, restive, and revolutionary temper of the times. His vivid images both painterly and graphic soon captured the attention (and commissions) of non-government organizations, academics, friends from the literary community, fellow musicians, and artist collectives.
As a freelance artist, boyD worked doggedly and gave freely: a mix of professionalism and generosity that enabled him to produce dozens of intricate images doubling as cover artworks for their synthesis of complex social realities, as well as hundreds of illustrations incisive and inclusive in their scope. Since the 1980s, these appeared in numerous publications alongside his practice as a painter-activist-musician: academic journals, books, manuals, newsletters, literary folios, calendars, album art, and print collaterals, to enumerate a few print categories.
This shelf takeover slash fundraising and inventory, initiated by friends and family, offers us a view of that breadth of practice in design, illustration, and art direction. With close to a hundred publications serving as a platform to show his work, boyD’s proves how the pages we turn capture a lifetime of solidarity as an artist of the people.
