Provenance: Provenance: Private Collection, Manila

ABOUT THE WORK

Marcel Antonio loves the irony of treating human beings as if they were subservient to an inhuman, almost abstract order. The art of Marcel Antonio is a unique blend of haunting poetry and oneiric sensibility in two dimensions. The woman is heavily sexualized by her suggestive pose and how the artist portrays the curvature of her body. There is an implied narrative, and to assist in the telling of his story, Marcel Antonio uses a richness of detail, even a multiformity of situations; the architectural elements further focus the viewer on the seated female. The shadows and curvature of her body is accentuated in contrast with the flat rendering of random visual elements behind her. Here we find shifting viewpoints, tilting of axes, and dislocation of objects. Despite Marcel Antonio’s confident handling of the other ‘petits recits’, they are curiously integrated in a quirky manner in the composition, which adds to the charm. At heart of his search for artistic fulfilment lies the complexity and tenor of the human figure amid convolutedly surreal visual narratives.