Provenance: Private Collection, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Literature: Reyes, Cid etal. ROMULO OLAZO. Paseo Gallery, Makati, Philippines. 2013, p.170-171

ABOUT THE WORK

The year 1994 was eventful for Romulo Olazo. It was then that he celebrated his 25th year in the Philippine art scene. To commemorate his prolific career, he held three simultaneous one-man shows under the black-and-white umbrella theme at the Finale Art File (curated by Roberto Chabet), Galleria Duemila, and the Crucible Gallery. The same year also marked the final group exhibition of Olazo, Cesar Legaspi, Mauro Malang Santos, and Ang Kiukok due to the death of Legaspi. Capturing illusions for posterity is an age-old goal in art. Olazo’s work in the Permutations Series depicts a vast neutral field as an expansive backdrop, from which brittle lines float from the void. Olazo’s work never loses its filmy elegant quality. Permutations Series II fills the viewer’s field of vision, blocks out the distractions of the everyday world, and becomes the viewer’s environment. Olazo’s intention was to evoke, through a visually satisfying organization of pictorial elements, the magic of space and silence. It has often been thought that Olazo’s Permutations were made using the silkscreen process, but they are actually hand-drawn. Olazo’s concerns with simplicity and directness, layered elements and spatial development, as well as the meditative and contemplative, were central in all of his work. Clarity of form that is neither entirely plastic nor pictorial is seen in Olazo’s Permutation Series.