Provenance: Provenance: Private Collection, USA

ABOUT THE WORK

His ethereal landscapes with dreamlike carabaos which seem to float in vapor. This barrio scene is an outstanding example of paint used purely to describe atmospherics. This picture reflects these qualities in visual terms. The objects of trees, farmers and carabaos are barely defined at all. The eye is engaged and led into the picture by the stronger backdrop mist. Instead, he trained his mind’s eye to snip from the reel of his visual memory the truly instant impression that satisfied him. He would take a subject like a nipa hut, simplify it to a few lines, divest it of individuating details, emphasize its basic form by elongation and attenuation. The result has a whimsical charm, like sweet nostalgia. But no doubt about it: his stylization has an impeccable sense of design. Tabuena has not lost his decorative sense in all of his decades as an artist is abundantly clear in this work representing his pre-Mexican period.