Death of a young artist
It was like an alumni homecoming with teachers and former students coming together and greeting each other with smiles and tears. Except that this time the tears were not of the joy of reunion but of loss.
It wasn’t a planned meeting. Most of those who came learned about it through text or Facebook. It was late at night and many came straight from the office. I myself was informed about it through text about two hours earlier that our student, Ryan Ray Merencillo, a third year Advertising Arts major from Bukidnon province, had passed away a week after he was rushed to the hospital for a gunshot wound.
Coming from a friend’s graduation party that night, Ryan and two of his friends decided to drop by a convenience store across Cebu Doctors’ Hospital for a shot or two of beer. It was to be just another one-for-the-road round of drinks. But the official statement in the Facebook group Justice for Ryan Ray Merencillo, which was put up by friends, narrates what follows: “After a few bottles, they were approached by a group of four individuals; two males, two females. For reasons unknown, one of the males started a fight with Ryan’s group, produced a 9mm handgun from a silver Honda sedan and fired on Ryan before quickly fleeing the scene.”
One of Ryan’s friends who was with him when it happened recalled how the suspects, including the girls who were with them, just laughed as they tried to escape to the car after the victim was shot. The security guards also ran when they heard the gunfire, leaving Ryan’s companions to rush the bleeding victim to the hospital.
Originally from Bukidnon, Ryan had been living alone here in Cebu trying to make ends meet by working freelance as a digital illustrator and graphic designer.
He thus only had his friends to rely on to help him in the hospital and in following up the case. I first learned about the incident on TV, that a freelance graphic designer had been shot by an unknown gunman. I was shocked when his name was mentioned yet was immediately relieved to hear that the victim was now safe in the hospital.
No news came after that. It wasn’t, after all, one of those high-profile cases that the media would be interested in following up.
Ryan’s relatives who finally came from Bukidnon and his friends who had been volunteering to help in the case complained that the investigation was too slow and workers in the convenience store who witnessed the crime were hesitant to help out of fear.
I was not particularly close to Ryan when he was a student. He was one of those who would drop out before the semester ended, perhaps because of his freelance work. But he left some remarkable work in his printmaking class and a really good magazine he designed and art directed for typography class that unfortunately was submitted late.
I checked his work posted on Facebook and was amazed at his skill in digital painting. He liked to portray Medieval warriors in battle against dark and dreary landscapes that now seem to be premonitions of his own violent death.
While I’m not a big fan of digital illustration, I am sure that is something inevitable. It is the future of painting. The canvas is gradually being replaced by the electronic tablet and young artists are finding it more comfortable to paint with just their fingers on a touch screen.
Ryan thus exemplifies the new generation of artists who need not work in a messy studio. With just a laptop, they can paint anything from futuristic spacecrafts to gladiator fights in the Middle Ages. As technology is still new, so much remains to be explored by this new breed of artists. Ryan was just starting in his craft and he already showed so much potential.
His penchant for the depiction of strange worlds and fantasy seems to suggest a longing for escape, perhaps away from the present where real nightmares are lived. Unfortunately, he was caught in one, another untimely death of an artist who could still have achieved so much more with his skills.
But it was a death that would bring the best out of his friends. They now take the risk volunteering to urge authorities to find the perpetrators who are still at large. They take time, leaving behind their work as artists, to help the bereaved family in their pursuit of justice.
As such, they exemplify the ideal Carolinian artist as one not safely cocooned in the studio but someone sensitive to what’s happening around him or her.
It makes me proud as their teacher.
