Provenance: Private Collection, Switzerland
Acquired directly from the artist in the 60's

ABOUT THE WORK

Aguinaldo was born in New York in 1933 to logging Tycoon and former Magsaysay campaign manager Daniel R. Aguinaldo, and his Russian-American wife. Aguinaldo discovered his passion and love for the arts after encountering the works of Rembrandt and the other Dutch masters at the Metropolitan Museum. But it was the eclectic oeuvres of the famed abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock that eventually influenced his early works as a bona fide artist. Raw and real, these pieces were characterized by their energetic composition fueled by an impromptu methodology that is undoubtedly similar to Pollock’s own practice. Aguinaldo then went beyond his Abstract Expressionist Flick paintings and then began to dabble into the controlled simplicity of his relatively more minimalist and linear works. These pieces feature a heavy emphasis on color, seemingly echoing the works of Rothko and Albers. But, it is Aguinaldo’s use and command of light and gradation that make his works true masterpieces. In 1971, Aguinaldo, along with other local artists, represented the Philippines in the Sao Paolo Biennale. His work has since been exhibited in renowned spaces, from the Fukuoka Art Museum in Japan to the Museum of Art in Singapore. These elements give Aguinaldo’s work a sense of space and physicality that, in turn, engages the viewer to ascribe a certain meaning. This particular piece is more akin to Aguinaldo's later style rather than his Linear or Flick works. The work features the use of frottage, or a technique in which the artist takes a rubbing from an uneven surface to achieve the desired effect. This is evident in this work in which Aguinaldo’s process creates a seemingly ethereal layer that partly obscures a much more detailed work behind a wall of paint and material. Aguinaldo would eventually incorporate this technique into his mixed-media and image-based pieces.