Ronald Ventura is known for his theatrical tableaux in hyper-realist paintings, sculptures and assemblages using caricature, graffiti and realism impinging on the consumerist modern world. This 2008 work from the 2008 Singapore exhibition, Mapping The Corporeal, at the NUS Museum, takes this farce into a monochrome blending the Baroque with the mock-classical. The critic Cid Reyes observed: “(Ronald) Ventura’s painting is a bravura display of relentless skill, which allows the image… to glisten… an improbable merging of photographic realism and a flawlessly airbrushed set.” Ronald Ventura is the most famous of the Philippines Ventura Art Brothers with him being the eldest at 47. Rolando or ‘Olan’ is 44 and Roldan ‘Manok’, 41. Ronald became the Philippines’ most expensive living artist when his painting, Greyground, sold for US$1.1mil, at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in 2011, a record for Southeast Asian contemporary art. He was named Artist of the Year in Art Manila 2001, the Jurors Choice in the Asean Art Awards 2002, and the 2005 Ateneo Art Awards which won him a Sydney art residency. He was invited to Biennials in Praque (2009) and Nanjing (2010) and had solos in Taiwan, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Singapore and the United States (Tyler Rollins 2009, 2011, 2014, 2017). His solo exhibition titled Comic Lives was held at Whitestone Ginza New Gallery, Tokyo Japan in 2018. He graduated with a BFA in Painting from the University of Santo Tomas in 1993.