Charming Innocence | Carlo Ongchangco

“Charming Innocence” by Carlo Ongchangco, on view at Galerie Joaquin Online

Visual artist Carlo Ongchangco invites you to a surreal world ignited with amusement, youth, and kinship. “Charming Innocence” comprises thoughts, imaginations, and expressions inspired by naïf motifs from children’s books, fairytales, and fantasy stories.

Borrowing and adapting these concepts, Ongchangco narrates a delightfully amusing oeuvre consisting of children and parental figures in acts of the everyday. What sets his naïf motif apart from others is his creative ability to capture a child's authentic charm, purity, and spirit – free and unaffected by outside influences. In particular, he allows his child characters to enact their unspoiled imaginations and curiosities. With scenes that combine children’s playfulness and aspirations, Ongchangco ultimately creates imagery that inspires and reinforces the pure joy of being a child.

Also joined by the children are their acting parental figures, underlining the importance of having a role model that the child can esteem as they continue to venture into their curiosities in the environment they evolve in. In essence, “Charming Innocence” is a capricious journey into the mind of a developing being and spirit, wherein dreams and fantasies fly above and beyond under the guidance of goodness, sensibility to reality, and the role models the children are surrounded with.

Text by Therese Atienza

About the Artist

Carlo Ongchangco’s art is whimsical but not frivolous. His works borrow from the visual language of children’s book illustration, graphic design, cartoons, and Japanese pop art. He uses subdued colors that create a wistful, nostalgic mood for the caricature subjects that populate his works. His characters are almost always children with rounded faces, with eyes that are uneven – one is often inconspicuously small while the other is grotesquely big. The emphasis made with the big eye hint at a mystery, and a discovery waiting to be made.

Educated at the University of Santo Tomas, Philippines with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Interior Design, this multifaceted artist consistently defies being boxed into a specific category. With over twenty group exhibits and eleven solo exhibits, the first of which was in Macau, and the latest in Singapore, this cosmopolitan artist maintains a loyal following from a particular niche of collectors.


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