A STORYTELLER BY DESIGN
Daniel Palma Tayona
30 July 1968 – 21 June 2020
Daniel, or Dan to us, was CANVAS’ founding creative director.
You will see his hand in nearly each of CANVAS’ of children’s books from our very first one, Elias and His Trees to our latest winner of the Romeo Forbes Children’s Story Writing Competition, Daughter and the Great Fish, which would be his last.
Of the many books that Daniel designed, “A Fish Tale” by Becky Bravo, with artworks by namesake Daniel dela Cruz, was one of his favorites.
Doll Eyes, one of the many titles he designed for CANVAS, won the 2012 National Children’s Book Award. At every book launch, he would proudly announce to almost anyone he met “Ang cute ng book,‘no?! Ako designer niyan!” with a little a chortle.
All of the books that Daniel works on are meticulously designed, and can undergo multiple revisions before they are finally published.
Cover Study 1
Cover Study 2
Cover Study 3
Cover Study 4
Final Cover
In between designing books and art-directing for CANVAS, he also made time for his own personal artistic pursuits – as a children’s book illustrator and a painter.
He illustrated Bugtong, Bugtong, two volumes of Filipino riddles (Tahanan Books, 1998 and 2013) and worked two years on the picture book Dalawa ang Daddy ni Billy, a story of two gay fathers raising a child (Tahanan Books, 2018).
Daniel signing copies of “Bugtong, Bugtong II” , which was launched at CANVAS Gallery and Garden in 2013.
Signing his works as Palma Tayona, Dan continued to join art exhibitions such as our annual Looking for Juan Outdoor Banner Project, to which his piece “Mela,” a pen and ink work on the myth of the gumamela flower, was a contribution. CANVAS acquired his particularly striking work to be part of the Tumba-Tumba Museum’s permanent collection.
Daniel also joined “The Weight of Words: An Alphabet Book of Human Rights”, the exhibition for which was held at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
Pintados was Daniel’s last one-man show, an online one via Marahuyo Gallery. He continued a series he started in 2011 – a portrait drawn from the childhood memory of his family’s help sweeping the floor with her heavily inked arms.
Expanding on that image, his works became a narrative and homage to pintados, tattoed pre-Filipinos, on a ship bound for the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.
Daniel always had a curious spirit, eager for stories and their retellings – two reasons why he loved his home in Pasay City, where he could people-watch from his apartment window or go down to the streets to converse with community.
These characters – random acquaintances or sometimes intimate friends – would eventually become voluptuous figures in his paintings.
“STARS AND STRIPES”
by Palma Tayona
Acrylic on canvas (2019)
“VENDADERAS”
by Palma Tayona
Acrylic on canvas (2010)
Daniel Palma Tayona was a storyteller by design – through his paintings, illustrations, and creative eye. He was CANVAS’ creative director, our friend, Fafa Dan, and brother, already missed.
