Provenance: Private Collection, Makati City

ABOUT THE WORK

Possibly the foremost Filipino abstractionist working today, Lao Liaben has distilled his forms to their essential, minimalist component, which has a paradoxical quality of capturing universal truths. In this work that revels in its monochromatic intensity, the “substance” alluded to in the title is the tapering shape that forms the heart of the composition. Its connection to objective reality cannot be avoided: from a shard of carbon to magma to rock hovering in space. As an abstract form, its organic-crystalline shape suggests darkness amassing volume, lifting from the surface of the support and declaring its presence amid the relative flatness of an equally dark background. Substance is a work steeped in enigma, as if the very hand of the artist has been seized by the power of prophecy.