Provenance: Provenance: Private Collection, Manila

ABOUT THE WORK

Distancing herself from the new and avant-garde in art, Isabel Diaz dwelled in a visual world of flowers and the high life with its accoutrements and conviviality. With her expressive renderings of dynamic three-dimensional forms, Diaz transforms a simple still-life sceneinto a poignant, enigmatic narrative. She never overworks her paintings yet the eternally delicate collision of drawing and color is always balanced in her works. The subject is rendered in bright neutral colors, and with the absence of fine details, as though seen through a translucent filter. It is figurative, but it is not quite Realism. The elegant milieu Isabel Diaz portrayed is the one in which she lived. She stayed true to a time-proven approach to the art and craft of painting, as well as elegant, oldfashioned notions of the life of people of leisure. Her works emanate a soft and effortless allure that stems from her ardent passion for her craft.