Literature: Literature: Reyes, Cid. Edwin Wilwayco. Fatima University Gallery Foundation, Inc., 2017, p. 88.

ABOUT THE WORK

Abstractionist Edwin Wilwayco’s Bird of Paradise series was inspired by his wife planting flowers, particularly the heliconia, on a Saturday. Also seeing the blooms jutting near the window sill, he was attracted to the plant’s aesthetic appeal, with its shapes and colors of red, yellow, purple, and pink. Flowers are objects with a decorative allure, but Wilwayco instead opts for unleashing tension and a “pulsating element” in his series of Bird of Paradise paintings. Structurally, the sharp leaves in varied striking hues are masterfully rendered to capture movement. In these works, Wilwayco’s sensibilities as an abstract expressionist are highly evident. Critic Paul Zafaralla wrote on Wilwayco’s choice of floral image: “Clearly, Wilwayco has lavishly served the needs and standards of colorito, though the distinctive form and shape of the heliconia, its disegno, in the erect, sharply flaring bracts, like a cockscomb, or in the pendent lobster-claws, drooping like a bunch of ripening fruits, conjure up other natural forms from a vegetative or sea world. For Wilwayco, this is form as fulcrum, with which to stage identifiable inferences.” This impressive 1991 piece features the celebrated abstractionist’s favored plant that serves as a metaphor for various moods and seasons and intimations of mortality, as noted by critic Cid Reyes. The overall composition of the flowers’ and leaves’ tips and edges, made more striking by color tonalities akin to nature’s hues, evoke a sculptural quality and a sense of mobility.