Toys and stories and art: Remembering the adventures we had to outgrow
Words Amanda Juico Dela Cruz
June 24, 2024
“Create a character that would be popular with kids, and twist it into something more edgy, more adult,” Jacqui Palumbo wrote in her editorial work How Collectible Designer Toys Became an Art Form for Artsy. Wetworks and Arman Kendrick understood the formula and added Filipino touch here and there in their Japanese-inspired art toys exhibited from the 1st to the 13th of June at Arte Bettina.
“I love anything Japanese. I’m a huge fan of anime and manga. So, I wanted to create my own take on a Japanese character kid,” Wetworks said in the gallery’s social media promotion when asked about Hiro, the ebullient and resolute Samurai kid. Wearing cardboard boxes as armor—from his kabuto to his mengu to his do—the artist returns us to our childhood days when we would create things out of anything that we could get our hands on. It is our imagination and playfulness at work. Accompanying Hiro in his journey is his adorable quest guardian, Fuji. “I have this corgi named Charlie” Wetworks said, “and I wanted to immortalize my corgi. Sakto na he is a bodyguard of Hiro and I think they look good together.”
Meanwhile, Arman Kendrick fished out his ideas from the deep-sea creatures he imagined to be living in the ukiyo-e The Great Wave off Kanagawa. “Si Tako Jimbo dinesign ko siya noong early years ko sa art toy scene. So, at that time, ako and yung fiancé ko now super fascinated kami sa deep-sea creatures. Then ako, growing up, super fan ako ng Japanese-inspired media so yung mga anime, manga, mga movie, comics,” the artist said when asked to introduce his characters in another promotional material. Tako Jimbo is an octopus that accompanies Toy, short for Totoy, in the hero’s quest for justice and enlightenment. Toy is an homage to our younger selves who imagined ourselves as defenders of Truth and Goodness, both spelled with a capital letter. “Si Toy naman is parang love letter ko siya sa artworld,” the artist said, “kasi parang for the longest time I’ve been doing mass produced na figures. And I just wanted to do something new, something mas personal, and ako yung humahawak ng lahat.”
Kendrick, an industrial designer by profession, has been creating art toys for nine years now. Wetworks, on the other hand, has been creating for thirteen years. With this much experience and exposure to the artworld, particulary to the art toy scene, they invited their friends who were asked to re-imagine Toy and Tako Jimbo, and Hiro and Fuji. Sounds like a role-playing game where the player has the power to choose their character’s fate. Kendrick’s characters were given new plots by Reen Barrera, Jan Calleja, Jethro Olba, Jojo Barja, Paulo Amparo, 8FF Studio, Yok Joaquin, 13 Luckymonkey, Distort Monsters, and Two Front Teeth. Vync, Kumkum, DTC Studios, Winvill, Merchdesigns, Pawpaw, Lianne Steffi Lim, Thiago Saur, Ramona Gaston, Dondi Fernandez, and May Ann Licudine breathed new life to the characters created by Wetworks.
“All the artists, they’re awesome,” Wetworks said giving a sneak peak on the process of this collaborative show. “With the little time we gave them, the output, it’s crazy. I chose specifically [eleven] artists with different styles.” Kendrick also focused on the styles of the artists he collaborated with. “Sobrang pinakita nila yung distinct styles nila tsaka yung skills nila na na-accumulate throughout the years sa kanya-kanyang journey nila sa artworld.”
In a sense, the exhibition was not just an art exhibition. It was a platform where adults with child-like imaginations allowed their creativity to flow and their hard-earned skills to create their own worlds like what children did. After all, we all need to nurture in one way or another that child that is kept within us.
