The Little Mermaid

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THE LITTLE MERMAID, 2000, acrylic on paper, 10 x 12.5 inches, Mark Yap collection

By Arnaldo Mirasol

An excerpt from “Old-Fashioned Fairy Tale Art” – an article I wrote which is also the title and a recounting of my first solo show at the Crucible Gallery in September 2001:

“…Many consider my illustration for the story The Little Mermaid (above) as the best of the fairy tale illustrations I did for the book ONCE UPON A TIME. Perhaps, Tahanan Books publisher Reni Roxas was one of them, as shown by her choice of this illustration as cover art for the book (below). 

I’m a bit baffled though, because if she found The Little Mermaid that good, why did she not bought it, and instead acquired for her collection my illustrations for the stories, The Wild Swans and The Farmer and His Wife. (Below)

Apart of course from the meticulous intricacy of my brushwork in The Little Mermaid, what amazed the admirers of this illustration is the composition. They were astounded by my supposed ingenuity in coming up with that circling fishes motif in the background. To this I say, be astounded no more, because the idea for that background wasn’t original – I just copied it. I was “inspired” by David Doubilet’s photo which appeared in the National Geographic Magazine, of a circling school of barracudas, at the eye or center of which is a hovering scuba diver.” (Below)

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I was born and raised in Tondo, Manila, Philippines. I took up Fine Arts, major in painting at the University of Santo Tomas and the University of the East. In 1981, I began working as a professional artist, when I was hired as editorial cartoonist for the newspaper People's Journal Tonight. In 1987, I applied and was hired for the same job in Joe Burgos' We Forum Publications. In between my cartooning stints, I worked as gallery assistant at the Galeria de las Islas, and was an educational book illustrator from 1988 to 2000 In 1996, I showed my portfolio to Reni Roxas and Marc Singer, publishers of Tahanan Books for Young Readers. Being especially impressed by the cover art I did for Phoenix Publishing House, Reni and Marc commissioned me to do the illustrations for their collaborative book First Around the Globe: The Story of Enrique. I went on to illustrate four more books for Tahanan: Tamales Day, The Brothers Wu and the Good-Luck Eel, Once Upon a Time, and Long Ago and Far Away. My other books are Origin of the Frog, and Anina ng mga Alon (Anina of the Waves). Two of my books are prize-winners abroad. The Origin of the Frog won a runner-up award in the 12th Noma Concours for Picture Book Illustration in Tokyo, in 2000. While the supposed excellence of my illustrations for The Brothers Wu and the Good-Luck Eel landed me on the Honour List of the Basel-based International Board on Books for Young people (IBBY). I had three solo art exhibitions, so far - once at the Hiraya Gallery and twice at the Crucible. I had also participated in several group exhibitions. My paintings in the eighties, although belonging to the social-realist school, were tempered somewhat with surrealist color and humor. One of my paintings from that period, the "Hungry Child Dissected", won in 1984, one of the three Best Entry awards in the First Metrobank Annual painting Competition. 2008 was a landmark year for me. It was during that time that I finally weaned myself away from the sharp-focus realist style of my previous paintings. While my earlier works were rendered with a meticulous attention to details, my recent illustrations and paintings - with their simplification, distortion, and loud coloration - have a decidedly modern and pop art feel to them. I still live in Tondo, with my wife Carina, and sons Brando de Niro and Karel Andrei. I am popularly known as Arnel Mirasol in the Philippine art circle.

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