ABOUT THE WORK

Romulo Olazo’s Diaphanous series is undoubtedly one of the most iconic experimentations in Philippine art. Executed through a span of four decades, yielding tens of thousands in studies, sketches, and paintings, both on canvas and paper Romulo Olazo’s Diaphanous works constitute an entire lifetime’s worth of bold and groundbreaking artistry. The word diaphanous, whose origins come from the Greek words dia, which means ‘through’, and phaenin, which means ‘to show’, is used to describe the seemingly ephemeral lightness of a certain object—an unquestionably apt description of Olazo’s groundbreaking method. Olazo’s Diaphanous series is characterized by layers of gossamer-like pastiches of light and color often piled atop of one another, effectively creating a transcendentally spectral veil that seemingly shrouds and reveals its underlying beauty at the same time. This particular work titled Diaphanous 487 also showcases Olazo’s unparalleled mastery over color. His delicate and airy swathes of white, which fill up a majority of the center of the canvas, is both complemented and contrasted by the burgeoning presence of the work’s deep and unbridled shade of red. It is this interplay between opposites—of nuanced strokes and bold hues—that makes Olazo’s work a cut above the rest. His mastery of his craft is seemingly only rivaled by the likes of fellow artists H.R. Ocampo and Arturo Luz locally, and Piet Mondiran and Willem de Koonig internationally.