Accompanied by a certificate issued by Finale Art File
confirming the authenticity of this lot

Provenance:
Private Collection, Manila

ABOUT THE WORK

Through his works, Ang Kiukok drove home to the point that there’s more to life than meets the eye. The principle of modern painting is allegiance to the two - dimensional quality of the pictorial surface. Foreground and background meld. While line, form, color, and texture take precedence over figurative veridicality. Ang best expressed this idiom in his still lifes, where the shapes of fruits and bottles become visual notes masterfully orchestrated into harmonious imagery, such as this Watermelon masterpiece that came in varied colors - each typifying a passion, a private to every appetite; the fruit was relished in as many ways, not just on a platter. The watermelon slices seem at once to rest on a solid, wooden plank and yet float across the surface of the canvas like a new kind of calligraphy. He typically includes small, scarcely identifiable elements to suggest that the gaze of the viewer rises vertically up the canvas, rather than plunge deep within any implied corner of the featured still life. Ang imposed a magisterial appropriacy over every busy detail, boldly using repetitions and variations of triangles, rectangles and circles to hold a precarious balance in place.