Reneboy Chona

“I acquired sacks full of floppy diskettes at our local junk shop, which cost me only one peso a piece! Upon seeing the discarded plastics, it triggered inspiration in me that I wanted to create something different, because sometimes the use of just a canvas and some paint feels a bit lacking”.Reneboy Chona is a friend and contemporary of Rodney Yap. Trained in Davao at the Ford Academy, Chona notes Mark Gonzaga, Charles Punzalan, Owen Bajenting, and Jeffrey Pantoja as some of the artists he learned from.His acrylic and/or oil works may be categorized as modern/contemporary surrealism that usually carries the subjects of politics or random but lovely and child-like things. Chona found that the diskettes can be used alone as small pieces or part of an image on a canvas. Chona’s style is fueled by his own ability to invent and he cites Picasso and Kandinsky as influences on his thinking and his work. Educating students and the public is one of Chona’s goal as an artist.“I think artists have a higher level of philosophical awareness and spirituality because we are trained—may it be unconsciously or indirectly, to be more sensitive to our environment. It is like having a sixth sense to be able to translate our own experiences or the experiences of other people from immaterial to the material”.