ABOUT THE WORK

Aside from the folk traditions such as fiestas and pageants which found their way in the works of Tam Austria, one theme Austria shares with the Laguna de Bay artists is the cult of woman, which is part of native folk romanticism. The nuanced monochromes would be balanced by Austria’s very astute sense of composition. Austria’s monochromatic rendering usually alternates flat and light-dark patterns, figures and objects are contoured softly and delicately. Delicate lines accent the broad areas of color, which, in unison, strengthen the image of a loving mother and her child. Indeed, very few artists have interpreted the maternal relationship as affectionately as Tam Austria. Austria’s women-figures, often depicted with infants (a folk reinvention of the Madonna and Child), are idealized portraits of the Filipino woman. Garbed in folk costumes, the subtle depiction of the facial details combined with the contours of flesh produce the impression of a realistic individual, contrasting sharply with his more piquantly angular women amid sinuous details and backdrops in most other works. Tam Austria’s later women would be sinewy, slender, elegant and graceful. His are idealized portraits without any of the cult of the ugly fostered by high realism or postmodernism. Tam’s Mother and Child won fourth place in the 1982 Mobil Art Foundation.