Painting The Town Red

Artist-turned-entrepreneur Kat Gosiengfiao Is Taking Her Passion for the Arts Up a Notch by Creating Her Own Set of Paints via Pinta Ph.

- Rholiza Beth

Most artists aspire to bringing to life a canvas beautifully draped in artisanal strokes, an intricate menagerie of colors, sometimes an indistinct amalgamation of shapes,

and voilà—a masterpiece! Kat Gosiengfiao, with the inception of her local pigment venture Pinta PH, took her artistry to the next level and decided to not just settle for the finished picture—she also poured her creativity down to the bare level and invested in creating and selling her own paint. As a pioneer color mixologist in the country, Gosiengfiao is highly optimistic—she hopes to foster a new appreciation and a deeper understanding of raw materials and hopes to build a more localized artist community in the country that will support local from the paint up, so to speak. Gosiengfiao brings her carefully curated set of paints—with Filipino names, no less—and takes her paintbrush with her in the hopes of creating a more creative Philippines—one pigment at a time.

TELL US ABOUT THE INCEPTION OF PINTA PH.

I’ve had watercolor as my prime medium for making art a few years back. I wanted to have a fuller understanding of the medium since I was already teaching people how to use it. So, I sought out how to make the materials myself. After reading some articles, books and a lot of online research, I was able to make some for my personal use that my friends encouraged me to share or even sell because they were willing to buy. So I guess that’s how it turned to a business idea rather than just for personal use, because we can actually make our own.

HOW DO YOU GATHER THE RAW MATERIALS?

Either I gather them myself, they get sent to me as samples by friends especially for soils/rocks (raw materials), or I get them already as pigment powders from suppliers.