Provenance: Paseo Gallery Private Collection, Manila

Exhibited: Ayala Museum ArtistSpace, “Azool: Romulo Olazo”, August 12 to 25, 2008, Makati City.

Literature: Legaspi-Ramirez, Eileen, Azool: Ro - mulo Olazo, Paseo Gallery, Makati, Philippines, 2008 (Illustrated)

ABOUT THE WORK

Azul, the Spanish terminology for blue which symbolizes the depth, sincerity and trust, that the late abstractionist Romulo Olazo has fully transformed into symphony of colors that brings serenity to our distraught and often tired eyes. This concept is what Olazo transforms into a latter series of works towards the latter end of his life, the Azool series. Often mistaken as a continuation of his popular Diaphonous series that brought Olazo into the pinnacle of artistic success, the Azool series is a play on what the true meaning of the color blue. In her text to the exhibition catalogue, art historian Eileen Legaspi-Ramirez explains that color blue has varied meanings in other societies that can calm to one, but be aggressive to another: “…Blue as Conservative in England, Democrat in the US, secular in India and evocative of God’s glory in Hebraic texts; perhaps even more pointedly blue films are to erotic cinema what blue is certainly not in the iconic re-presentation of the virginal Mary of Catholic dogma…” It is quite appropriate through this work; Olazo warps our mind into questioning the veracity of our knowledge of what is truly harmony and through the usage of a singular color. For here, we find the artist re-inventing a customary idea that making the calm and therapeutic hues of blue and curvilinear lines and shapes form a symphony that transition from the serenity of the symphonies of Mozart to the bombastic thunders of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.