ABOUT THE WORK

          Elmer Borlongan’s paintings constitute original visual explorations of our urban songs and  urban legends that require semantic richness and resonance while they are also images of ennui wherein intermittent memories of everyday domesticity interweave with a contemporary street sensibility to create new polyphonic densities of meaning.
          Withal there is a hardness and sharpness of outline, and the color is still hard, though it is  softer than in the previous works: the treatment of the street smart subject has become  less satiric, more good humored.  Borlongan continues to focus on moderate distortion  by elongation to emphasize emotional stress or to convey the poetry of casual attitudes  and gestures.  Here, Borlongan shows his skill of intimating a story beyond the frame; honed by a credible career in painting that allows the artist to engender a quiet suspense (note the eyebrows of the young man) and explore the mysterious corners that await our waking lives.