Provenance: Private Collection, Manila

ABOUT THE WORK

This unusual abstract study from 1969 by the Neo-Realist Hernando R. Ocampo veers away from the customary abstract compositions that are customarily attributed to the artist. Starting in 1961, Ocampo was experimenting in his earlier iterations of abstractions with different pantones of colors in order to break from his surrealist streak that were borne about in his exhibitions with the Philippine Art Gallery (PAG) of Lyd Arguilla. In this untitled piece, Ocampo experimented with divisionism, a concept that was initiated from the pointillism of the Post-Impressionist Georges Seurat. Divisionism, also known as chromoluminarism is characterized as the separation of colors from different patches or shapes which interact with the retina of the human eye. It would seems that Ocampo probed into the pantones of purple that were supposed to be actuated with the hues of red and magenta to resemble a figure of a human or an animal, in a striking resemblance of a nouveau style derived from German-French artist Jean Arp.