In many families, personal interests tend to fall by the wayside as siblings follow each other into conventional careers. But it's the reverse for the Ferraris siblings - Joel, Nelson, Jocelyn, Noel and Edgar - whose love of art is mutually reinforcing. That's how the five became well-known artists in the Philippines, despite their father's insistence that they pursue more secure professions. All are winners of regional and national competitions, although only Joel and Edgar have pursued full-time careers in art. Now they are celebrating their reciprocal inspiration with their first joint exhibition, It Runs in the Blood, part of the Philippine Arts Festival. Hong Kong-based Joel is the eldest. Among the 49-year-old's earliest memories are he and siblings sprawled on the floor of their home in Iloilo City, Western Visayas, drawing on paper that their mother brought back from the local fashion school, where she was a registrar. 'I started doing this when I was very young and when my brothers came along, they fell into [it] too, quite naturally,' he recalls. 'After a point, we began fighting over pieces of paper.' Although entirely self-taught, the siblings were already winning regional and national competitions while in high school, pitting themselves against art school graduates and professional painters to get recognition because it was hard to stage their own exhibitions. 'We had no formal art training and, partly because oil paint was so expensive, we experimented with mixed media and indigenous methods such as using the clay from our province,' says Joel. 'Maybe that's why we won. In Manila, they hadn't seen art like ours.' The brothers often shared techniques. Nelson, 46, says he learned a lot from Joel, and youngest brother Edgar, 37, says Nelson taught him the basics. 'I was inspired by my older brothers but I tried to develop my own style,' says Edgar. Some friction arose from sibling rivalry, Joel says. 'Being the eldest, I was the first to win and bring the family honour as well as cash. But then Nelson started winning and I found that I couldn't beat him. I couldn't handle that.' But their mother, Teresita, intervened. 'I told them that they were brothers and if any of them won, it was the family name after all,' says the 82-year-old matriarch. The family wasn't well-off, and father Eugenio, an agriculture specialist at a government co-operative, hadn't wanted his children to be artists at first. So as a compromise, the three older sons - Joel, Nelson and Noel - studied architecture, while sister Jocelyn, who experimented with indigenous materials such as handmade paper in her work, studied medical technology. By the time Edgar entered university, he had the opportunity to study typical arts subjects, but he knew where his heart lay. 'After my first group exhibition, in high school, I realised that I didn't want to do anything else but paint,' he says. When the People Power movement erupted in 1986, Joel, too, was inspired to drop out in his final year to pursue his dreams. 'I was already making decent money doing portraits,' he says. Later, an invitation to paint a series of murals for public health campaign sponsored by a fashion label brought him wider attention. Joel came to Hong Kong 12 years ago when his wife Sally Reyes, an IT consultant, got a job in the city. His early years were a struggle, as he was an unknown locally, but his experience with murals eventually won him a collaboration with the Hong Kong Mural Society and projects for architecture and interior design firms. His mural work in the city ranges from Beyond the Boundary, a 66-metre project for the Home Affairs Bureau's race relations unit, to a giant of the restoration of the Holy Trinity College's old mural and even to a piece for the children's playroom in the Hong Kong Football Club. Joel, who maintains a studio in Tsuen Wan, has also exhibited in several group shows by Filipino artists and in the 2005 Sovereign Art Prize winners' exhibition. The other siblings, however, hold full-time jobs in other fields. Nelson specialises in theme park and monument design and Noel is a cartoonist, having worked on popular strips such as Tom & Jerry and shows such as Lilo & Stitch. Jocelyn works as a laboratory scientist in California. Now that the siblings are scattered across different cities, the exhibition serves as a family reunion through art - and to motivate theme to keep creating. 'Many artists get depressed and give up because they feel there's no promise and nobody is promoting them, so this is just a way to inspire one another,' Joel says. 'My sister Jocelyn has been so busy with work that she let her painting drop. But when we heard about our exhibition, she started painting again.' Although they strive to be stylistically different, the siblings' work through the years shares a preoccupation with religious and social issues. Filipino art has sometimes been criticised for focusing on such themes, but they're close to the painters' hearts. 'Maybe art can open people's eyes to reality rather than being an icon they bow down to,' says Joel. Noel's detailed Kulturang Pinag-ugatan explores the origins of Filipino art, and Joel presents On Second Thought, a work from 1986 about the clash between Christianity and communism, and Whereto, a more recent mixed-media, cracked-paint representation of the deterioration of society. Nelson's surrealist images reflect similar concerns with the issues of the day, from the environmental theme of CO2nians to the dangers of the internet in Cyberstreet Piracy. 'I wouldn't fault artists who only do beautiful paintings, but if my work can be of more use to society or the environment, I'd rather do that,' he says. The brothers' enthusiasm has also rubbed off on their wives. After a 15-year break, Sally picked up a brush again to contribute an abstract work, Flow Chart of Life, for the family show. Her sister Pamela, who is married to Nelson, added other paintings. Recalling his wife's first success at an art auction in 1992, Nelson says: 'The painting, which she did virtually overnight, sold for an amount that equalled her salary for a month. So she decided she'd better keep painting.' In addition to the show, their family's work is also in an online gallery, at ferrarisart.blogspot.com. 'The exhibition is not so much about art as to display how talent can flourish in the family,' says Joel, pointing to a wall of pictures by the children in the family. 'In the evenings, our kids tend to lie around drawing, just like we used to,' says the father-of-three. 'It's not something I taught them to do. The other day my son said he wants to be an artist when he grows up. Oh well.' It Runs in the Blood, Sara Sen Gallery & Studio Plus, 5A, Winner Building, 27-37 D'Aguilar St, Lan Kwai Fong. Until Jul 31; tel: 2525 6984
