my father would teach me how to draw a muscled man. I guess my passion for figures and storytelling comes from that." Antonio's art creation is often inspired by various contemporary "mythologies", with the artist articulately stressing that his concept of mythology goes beyond the common Greek and Roman notion. He states: "Myth can be anything, just like what Joseph Campbell enunciated in The Power of Myth, where he discussed comparative mythology and the continuing role of myth in human society." On originality, quoting and the appropriation of themes and images On the issue of originality in art and quoting/appropriating, Antonio has said, "My father used to tell me to not be afraid to copy, as it is the safest way to study. Even the masters did it. . . . Originality is a 19th-century idea that just won't die when right now there's really nothing that can be deemed totally original. Striving for originality in art is delusional. You can only do so much." "Blue funk erotica" and The Romantic Lie show Blue funk erotica or trance erotica was the art-critical term introduced by Filipino poet, art critic and painter V.I.S. de Veyra in a 2010 blog essay titled "Blue Funk'd Silent Stories" to describe Antonio's art. The blog essay reviewed the achievements of the Filipino painter from his earlier years on to his then-latest 2010 show. The phrase tag, which the critic-painter posited in his art and culture blog site A Party-Crashing Angle, instigated a dialogue between the artist and the critic, which culminated in a late 2011 series of paintings by Antonio. Antonio and de Veyra decided to collaborate on an early 2012 show using Antonio's new series, with the poet supplying 14 new poems for the show catalogue. De Veyra, being also a painter who once studied in the same fine arts college as Antonio, also collaborated with Antonio on a five-painting series of shaped canvases for the show. The two titled the show "The Romantic Lie: Desire, Ennui, Anxiety". De Veyra described Antonio's art as a face- and gestures-leaning figurative narrative or quasi-narrative art that avoids both the "folk happiness" and the "expressionism" of past and recent Philippine figurative art. Then de Veyra tagged Antonio's body of works as of a "blue funk erotica" or "trance erotica" embracing the melancholic or otherwise the vexed expression. He touted this kind of painting as the subtle sort