Provenance: Museum of Philippine Art, Manila

ABOUT THE WORK

As a sculptor and painter, National Artist Abdulmari Imao draws inspiration from the Tausug and Maranao artistic traditions of Southern Philippines, particularly the art of the okir wood carving design, which he reinterprets in a contemporary idiom. His art evolved into four distinct but interrelated themes: Islamic calligraphy, the sarimanok, the sari mosque, and the sari okir. He has executed these themes in different sculptural processes, mainly metal casting, welding, repousse, as well as painting, and has made use of different mediums, mainly brass and bronze in sculpture. Imao is known to combine okir and Arabic calligraphy to create sculptural variations in the name of Allah. In the sarimanok, Imao emphasizes elements of the bird with fish in its claws to create contemporary compositions. This work is an almost abstracted variation of the sarimanok, without the fish and claws. Imao reinvents and reinterprets tradition, what with his Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Kansas in 1962; his Smith Mundt and Fulbright scholarship, and his further studies at the prestigious and renowned Rhode Island School of Design as a foreign fellow.