Artist Profile

Manuel Pañares is an ethnographer and a historian painter. In 2002, was awarded the
Alibata Award for his Distinguished contribution in the Preservation of the Arts, Paintings
of the Tribes of Mindanao and the Historical Paintings “Sugbu Sa Karaang Panahon
from of the Cebu International Education the Arts, for his paintings Sugbo sa Karaang
Panahon.

“In my early childhood, my family lived in Bagumbayan, Marteres.
With them and my friends and relatives we walked to the Cathedral for
Mass and other special events, weddings, baptisms, Christmas and
the traditional Lenten Confessions and Festivities, the Siete Palabras.
Later, in Labangon, we climb the hills of Cebu to gather wood for re-
enactment of the Seven Last Words on Good Friday at the Cathedral.”

Painting Christ on Good Friday, became a devotion and a tradition for the artist:

I was 12 or 13 years old when I started to draw in pencil, I discovered
Jesus Christ on Good Friday. The question I often asked myself then,
was how Jesus looked? How could I recognize him? Later, at ages
17, 18 to 19 when I stated to use colors in my drawings, the face of
Jesus, I often encountered on Good Friday, became a sweaty and
bloody imprint of the face of Jesus Christ in Veronica’s Veil.
I continued to paint Veronica’s Veil through the years to Davao, trav-
eling abroad

I continued to paint, it was in the 1990’s when the series evolved into
a Montage to Peace. A juxtaposition and a collage of experience of
man’s journey vis-a-vis his relationship with God and his Creator. The
Series, Montage for Peace gained momentum in terms of its meaning
focusing of Man/s salvation and God’s love.

The Paintings went mobile on tour, to Davao, to the different Schools
in Cebu, to

CIE 2001, Davao 1999, Southwestern University 2002, Marcelo Fer-
nan Media Center 2004 Artmovs Anniversary, Ang Sto. Nino nga na-
himong Nasareno March 20007, Cathedral Museum May 8, 2007.