Dancing Mutants

“I was horrified at the consequences of such events. You see, after the explosions, the fish started to climb trees, they crawled inland … And I wondered what the effect would be on man, on human beings.” This was Hernando Ocampo’s response after watching a film on the horrors of war and the atomic age. Dancing Mutants is a confluence of organic forms in rhythms of reds and greens, reminiscent of the flora and fauna of the Philippines. The artist was influenced by his local environment and, in the Mutant series, imagined an apocalyptic nuclear age and its effect on humans. The result depicts humanoid figures that look as though they are dancing or swaying. To Ocampo, however, the appearance of the work was much more important than the subject matter. Ocampo was a leading member of the Neo-Realists, a group of artists in the Philippines who emerged after the Second World War. The group looked to create a new kind of reality, moving away from the conservative, figurative painting style that had dominated the first half of the 20th century. In the same vein, Manila, which was one of the cities most damaged during the Second World War, began to discover its own new reality after the War: reconstructing, rebuilding and modernising.