Accompanied by a certificate issued by Mrs. Josefa Joya Baldovino confirming the authenticity of this lot

Provenance: Private Collection, Manila

ABOUT THE WORK

Joya’s venture into the abstract was borne from the heightened movement of abstract expressionism in Western painting and the New York School in the 1950s, a scene characterized by spontaneity, experimentation, and the improvisational arts. Despite the vigor of such a movement eventually seeping into Joya’s works by the 1960s, there is a curious quality of dynamic rumination in his abstract pieces. How exactly does a vibrant outburst of life elicit a sense of contemplation at the same time? In Joya’s acrylic collages, the artist takes a refreshingly experimental approach to the aesthetic origins of abstraction— that is the art of Chinese calligraphy founded on oneness with medium and nature. It is an art only rendered possible through a natural flow of energies between medium, spirit, body, and environment—and the same can be said of Joya’s works. There is something artfully gestural in his manner of piecing together a harmonious tapestry of dynamic flows, composed through an overlay of texture and color that is not only clearly drawn from life despite the absence of figuration, but is also life-giving in itself. His is an art only rendered possible through a state of oneness that simply frolics in the moment. (Pie Tiausas)