manuel ocampo

His spacious studio together with generous amounts of sunlight spilling into the area felt so refreshing and inviting. There were tubes of paint, books on the great masters, and huge paintings everywhere you looked. A fertile place enticing one to toy with ideas, create things, and experiment. :)


Take a look at the creative playground of notable artist Manuel Ocampo!

Manuel Ocampo
(Makati City, Philippines)


Occupation: Manual Laborer of Weird Menageries Gussied Over White Ground


Website: www.dagcgallery.com


Favorite toy as a child: As a child, I used to play with anything I could put my hands on as toys while in a state of fantasy.


Favorite toy now: Now my toys are for real, and my fantasies forbidden.


Turn-ons: Kindness always turns me on. It's a striptease that never stops.


Turn-offs: Evil. Pure Black Evil. It taints everything and ruins the day like shit smeared on a shoe.


What are 5 things that inspire you right now? 
The color Black inspires me, which is the bastard offspring after a night of colorful orgy.
White is just asking for it.
Blue says it all.
Red always captures attention.
And Yellow is extremely sneaky, never underestimate it. Too much of it ruins everything. While too few doesn't make a party. Yellow is passive aggressive, pummeling you with soft paws.


Top 5 movies: Going to the movies is like going to see the dentist, except I'd rather go to the dentist to take away the pain. Movies just create more problems, because people tend to mix fantasy with reality. It can never be the vehicle for social revolution as early cinema was previously hailed to be. Too much entertainment makes one pathetic. While too much content will make you apathetic also. It's a no win situation. Plus, you still have to pay for admission. I don't see the point of sitting back and being the receiver of other people's fantasies at my expense. I'd rather have my own.


Top 5 books: Everyone should read. Books are better than movies for it allows you to imagine things yourself. As that famous slogan says, "if books were made of bricks," (then knowledge can really do damage, so to say). If you could let your fingers get past the cover, the table of contents, the preface and introduction, on your way to chapter 1, then surely it's a book worth the look. My recommended reading: if it's something that instructs you on how to do things correctly (driving, paying taxes, family planning, etc), it it's a reading that constructs a bureaucracy of interpretations that allow spontaneous arguments, if what you're reading helps you be aware and sometimes sensibly aroused, if it provides an escape, if the book can serve as a prop for conversing with the attractive person next to you, and if the book has the potential to transform its material into something else other than the purpose of reading, then all these qualities make it a truly great book.


Music you listen to: I like listening to ambient noise that just keeps you company without the cloying need to affect you. It is just what it is, a formless incoherence that is not necessarily void of presence.


5 Favorite websites: I can't name them. They are all illicit. You might get a virus.


When you're not busy with work, what do you do in your free time? My free time is always caught in traffic.


If you were to choose a different job, what would it be? I already have a different job, and now miss the first one.


If you can have any super power, what would it be? The power of money.


What is the biggest problem of the world right now? People loaded with opinions.


What do you think is the solution? To get off his ass and find a different job.


What's the most important life lesson you've learned so far? Ask me this question when I'm gone.


Most inspiring statement/movement (heard/said/read):
Don't stop believing.
Don't stop 'till you get enough.
Love like a hurricane.
Like a virgin.
Can't get no satisfaction.
Heaven knows I'm miserable now.
What, me worry?