Accompanied by a certificate signed by the artist confirming the authenticity of this lot

ABOUT THE WORK

Orley Ypon’s brand of figurative painting has led him to become one of the finest realists in the Philippine contemporary art scene today. Having gained consistent national recognition through the likes of the Art Petron, the GSIS and the AAP’s (Art Association of the Philippines) national painting competitions, the NCCA’s Ani ng Dangal awarding body, and even internationally through the New Jersey-based Art Renewal Center’s competitions, Orley Ypon has carved himself as a living master of realism. The piece at hand is visually reminiscent of his GSIS competition breakthrough work entitled Ahon (2008), characterized by a hectic composition of naked figures covered in mud while caught in dynamic gestures that seem to either crawl in desperation or emerge from the mire. While Ypon had already been known for his social realist paintings even before his Ahon series, with OberOber (2001) being among his seminal pieces for its starkly nostalgic image of childhood in Filipino folk life, it was in his Ahon series and its offshoot works that his mastery of social realism would culminate. Here, for example, by transposing the image of carabaos wallowing in mud into a frenzied composition of human figures, Ypon brings a touch of allegory into his social realism. The Philippine carabao is often associated with ideal qualities of perseverance and hard work, but here, the transposition of image leaves the viewer with a less than ideal picture of reality: Ypon’s figures are ultimately graphic in their disorder, viscerally pitiful in their toil and seemingly blind to the grander scheme of things that has endlessly trapped them in such circumstances. (Pie Tiausas).