Provenance: Private Collection, Manila

ABOUT THE WORK

Acknowledged as the Father of Philippine Modern Abstraction, H.R. Ocampo created a visual language that cannot be mistaken for anyone else’s. He is said to have evolved a homegrown abstraction in which interlocking shapes applied with different tonalities evoke an active visual field. Abstraction 74, which the master accomplished in 1976, features mostly earthly tones — from deep brown, to burnt sienna, to a whisper of yellow. This work in watercolor has a luminescent quality, as though allowing the whiteness of paper underneath the washes to shine through. While a few of his abstractions gesture at the visible world (as this work curiously resembles a mother and child), the viewer is enjoined to see the works of Ocampo as realms of their own, absolute and unstinting in their celebration of a cavalcade of forms.