as you might know, I live now for the last seven years in manila, philippines. it is a very poor country that is struck by disasters regularly, like the major typhoons and the floodings last year, as well as the recent threat of an erupting volcano. nevertheless filippinos are very creative people, some very well known singers like LEA SALONGA are from here, one of the most famous comic strip artist ALEX NINO grew up here, and a very well known painter lives here and is still creating his beautiful art at over eighty years of age – MAURO ‘MALANG’ SANTOS was born 1928 in santa cruz, manila. he studied fine arts at the university of the philippines and at the otis art institute in L.A. 1947 he started to work as a layout artist at a daily manila newspaper, where he created the first english daily comic strip. he published over the following years several comic strip series. together with six artist friends he set up the first art gallery in manila in 1965. continous exhibitions of his paintings followed in manila and all over the philippines, as well as in london, rome, N.Y., san franzisco, hong kong and bahrain. his paintings are colorful and feature simplified forms, often portraying women in traditional dress with fruits in baskets. I love his work, it is a lot like this very colorful country with its spanish tradition mixed with the asian culture. following are some selected pieces of his art.
© malang
my name is hans bacher, – I work as production designer in the animation film industry. for the last 45 years I lived and worked in exciting places around the world. after 7 years of teaching in singapore I am back at my homebase in manila, working on a few more books.
One1more2time3's Weblog 
beautiful colors shapes and textures! thanks!
Really beautiful. Before I read the post , I thinked that he was a latin american artist.
Philippines is not a very poor country!
from hans –
for your information I quote from a survey of the Australian government:
Poverty is a significant problem, but in combination with inequality, it poses a serious threat to stability in the Philippines. In 2006, almost 27.6 million people lived below the Philippines’ poverty threshold. This represents 26.9 per cent of Philippine families and 32.9 per cent of the population. According to international data, 44 per cent of the population subsisted on US$2 or less a day. Recent food price increases are estimated to push another 2.7 million people into poverty.
Poverty in the Philippines is mainly rural and, although variable by region, is widespread in the southern Philippines, particularly Mindanao. Poor productivity growth in agriculture, under-investment in rural infrastructure, unequal land and income distribution, high population growth and the low quality of social services lie at the root of rural poverty.
In addition, the Philippines has one of the highest levels of income inequality in Asia, with the poorest 20 per cent of the population accounting for only 5 per cent of total income or consumption.
Natural disasters, the risks associated with variable markets, and armed conflict in Mindanao, also threaten to deepen existing disparities by disrupting growth and worsening poverty—with the conflict affected areas being the poorest in the country.
You may find interesting the work of Oswaldo Guayasimin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswaldo_Guayasam%C3%ADn
from hans –
thank you, oscar. I have never heard of him. looked at his work that I could find in the internet – it is incredible!!!
you have some more like that? unfortunately I don’t know anything about the artworld in southern america, except
QUINO and PINTO.