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

Provenance: Finale Art File, Makati City

ABOUT THE WORK

Romulo Olazo started working on his Untitled Series in the early 1980s, debuting them in 1983 in a solo show titled “New Works” at The Luz Gallery. Patricia Tria Olazo, the artist’s wife, notes on the artist’s personal chronology in Cid Reyes’ monograph on the artist: “Olazo’s paintings take an opaque quality with the use of mixed media, acrylic, and oil on canvas.” From the success—both local honors and international exposure—that the Diaphanous Series had brought Olazo, it was evident in the Untitled works that Olazo wanted to take his artistry up another level, likely to prevent creative stagnation and locking himself up within the confines of comfort. Just as the work at hand, Untitled #85, exemplifies, Olazo preserves the irregularity of forms of the Diaphanous but strips it off with its inherent luminescence and delicate ethereality, opting instead for solidity and the use of bolder, varicolored pigments to highlight opacity thus, imbuing them with enigmatic flair. Swathes of colors seemingly engage in jarring dialogue with form, veering from the harmonious dancing of the two elements and enhanced by the airy and almost mystical quality of light in the Diaphanous. Reyes writes in the same book: “Clearly the Untitled works, by their sheer appellation, constituted Olazo’s experimental stage.” It can also be said that Olazo’s Untitled works foreshadow a transition to another acclaimed series— the Permutation Series. As the untitled works were born from the withdrawal of significant elements, so was the Permutation, retaining only the most fundamental—lines and, thus, leaving hollowed spaces. (Adrian Maranan)