Provenance: Provenance: Private Collection, Manila

ABOUT THE WORK

It was at a relatively early period in development of his aesthetic, the year 1979, when Mario Parial transforms a simple paired still life of flowers and fruit to a genre scene, by including the heads of the two children, together with a perceived “view” out of the window in the background. The configuration of the objects, together with the checkerboard pattern of the tablecloth, is remarkably naïve, as it is decorative. The works of Mario Parial were pioneering in their depictions of folk imagery, rural themes, and infectious joie de vivre. The artist celebrated like with works like this before gone in areas exploring the decorative and emblematic elements of talismanic anting-antings and the religious icons of folk Catholicism, and her endless depictions of naïve looking women.