A Garden in Bloom: Ed Defensor’s Flower Series

Ed Defensor’s foray into floral subjects was, by his own account, a serendipitous accident. It started when Himbon, an artist group he mentors, organized an exhibition with “flowers” as a theme. From there, Defensor began planting each seed of this idea in the paintings that he submitted for the exhibition “Pangagda” at Thrive Art Gallery in 2024. Since then, according to Defensor, his flower paintings have captivated friends, fellow artists, and patrons alike, marking a vibrant new chapter in his career.

For those familiar with Defensor’s studio, these blooms on his recent canvases are an inevitability. In the middle of the Defensor family compound is a garden, a living installation where bonsai, adenium, and roses mingle with stone and cement sculptures. The artist would also endearingly name his flowers after famous actresses as if they are cast of characters in a play. Perhaps it was only a matter of time before the flowers migrated from his garden to his canvas. 

Defensor’s artistic practice covers different art forms: theater, literature, and visual arts. All of which are ever-present in the artist’s studio — the music filling the air, the canvases meticulously hung on the wall telling stories of the progression of his images and also of his friends’ art, and the way each tool and material is situated as if they have their own blocking in a production set. But the recent paintings of flowers are where his previous styles converge. 

His floral compositions are characterized by blooms that crowd the canvas to its edge. The same density that has always been visible in Visayan art, where the artist seems to favor a “full canvas” vibrating with energy. Defensor’s execution reveals a loose yet controlled hand. His lines are reminiscent of his early pen-and-ink drawings of his Philippine Nipa Hut Series, and his Dancing for the Moon Series. His application of acrylic calls to mind the organic patterns in his landscape paintings in the early 1990s. Continuously innovating, Defensor has embraced art materials he ordered from Shopee. He enthusiastically demonstrated how he accelerated the process, which used to take three weeks. The current series also retains the complexity of his Manature Series, a series of over 400 paintings made by rigorous study of behaviour materials, collage, and layering of textures. 

As Vivaldi plays in his studio, Defensor laughs, “Nalingaw pa ako sa akon bulak-bulak” (I am still enjoying my little flowers).

Defensor’s penchant for flowers finds a parallel in the history of Impressionism. Much like Claude Monet, who spent time painting water lilies in his garden in Giverny, Defensor uses his art to study forms and colors. In Philippine art, flowers are found in many art movements. Modernists like Vicente Manansala use floral motifs to experiment with the transparency and translucency of his material, and Anita Magsaysay-Ho’s flowers imbue the grace and strength of femininity. In social realism, flowers have been symbols for the fragility of life and sometimes to signify the blooming of a national consciousness amidst political turmoil. Elsewhere, botanical illustrations remain a tool in studying form and mimesis. 

Likely, an artist who has long searched for transcendence and beauty in every art form he creates, Ed Defensor has discovered, perhaps, maybe rediscovered, it in his flowers. 

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