Provenance: Private Collection, Iloilo

ABOUT THE WORK

In sculpture, there are certain themes which demand certain materials. Each material has its own specific quality. Wood, for instance, is hard but it has a tender quality. Napoleon Abueva is no stranger to the challenge of creating from wood. Describing sculpture as primarily manual work, he stresses that the sculptor must also be a carpenter, mason, welder, electrician and even a weightlifter. His work is characterized by a strong sense of form and material, by flexibility and invention, and by a fertile imagination, by turns whimsical, literary, and fantastic. With wood, his ridges are as significant as the furrows, and the pronounced chisel marks are very much a part of the resulting visual experience. “I find excitement in the beauty and grace of living creatures, and I have grown to respect and love them. Sometimes, I don’t know which is of greater importance, the sculpture or the subject. The ends and means are one and the same.”