Provenance: Acquired directly from the artist by Rony V. Diaz

Literature: Ramon N. Villegas & Lisa Guerrero Nakpil, TWO NAVELS: LEON CURATED AUCTION, Leon Gallery, Makati City, 2016, p. 70-73 (illustrated)

ABOUT THE WORK

Images like this work, not merely evoke the anomie of a hyper-mechanical civilization, but also hint at boredom behind the chrome and glitter. Dehumanized figures — robots — fill up other canvases, their anatomical features replaced by slick mechanical articulations, cylinders, pistons, valves, wrenches, bolts, etc. Alienation, the brutalization of man by greed, and the self-centeredness of the ‘me Generation’ aggravated his discomfort. Cid Reyes asked him in 1983:“Who are the western painters whose works you admire?” Ang Kiukok: “Picasso, Francis Bacon, Sutherland.” Cid Reyes: “Among Filipino painters, whom do you admire?” Ang Kiukok: “None.” He found in Ricio Lebrun’s tormented men and brutes eloquent correlatives of this brutalization of man‘s spirit by a hyper industrial culture. The somber mood surpassed only by a prismatic richness and brilliance. Yet, in spite of the color splurge, these abstractions hardly give off a rainbow happy feeling; richness of color merely accentuates a desperate kind of cheer, a plastic madness. The side view is chosen to produce a most convincing image of man’s saturnine states of mind and other psychological conditions, the figure imparts a dynamic quality, representing the universal angst of man, and painted with broad bands of swirling color and dynamic forms, it reduces the agonized figure to a cyborg like skull in the throes of inner turmoil. His travel to Europe in 1965 with fellow artist and mentor Vicente Manansala was, for him, the best learning experience that he ever had. In his exposure to modern art, Picasso’s works proved to be a revelation form him; through which, he discovered what painting was supposed to be and what he really wanted to achieve as an artist.