Edwin Wilwayco returns to Singapore through the exhibit  “Recalibration,” which opens July 8 at Momentous Arts Gallery.

 

The title is in stark contrast with his first exhibit in Singapore, “Scherzo,” also at Momentous Arts in 2007, and the viewer may be led to surmise that the artist could be in a state of transition, shifting to a new style within, of course, his own chosen idiom of Abstract Expressionism, moving about the many mansions of the abstract school, and generally opening himself up late in his artistic career to new pastures, new visions, giving vent to the artist’s native nomad spirit.

 

In the first place, what needs to be recalibrated? What needs to be “measured again” or “rethought”? Surely Wilwayco is not reneging on, or recanting, the abstract ideal?

 

Don’t worry. Wilwayco remains committed to the classic abstract ideal as expressed by one of the first abstractionists, Robert Delaunay (1885-1941): “Color alone is form and subject.”

 

So the “Recalibration” series shows off generously the action of color contrasts as dynamic effects in themselves.

 

But one notes here a “rectification,” art critic Cid Reyes’ s interpretation of recalibration.

 

What could be rectified would be abstract art’s claim to objective purity, its supposed freedom from the sentimentalism of metaphysics and Romanticism.

 

What Wilwayco’s new exhibit seems to explore is that against abstract art’s claim to a rarefied realm of universals, where laws exist for art as well as for geometry, works of art can be constructed by pure intellection, avoiding all taint of the material world.

 

This may remain true by and large for Wilwayco’s general abstraction, but not for his expressionism.

 

Expressionism, of course, is the foil—the recalibration of, the check to—the abstract excesses. Expressionism shows the creative process of painting, its messy struggles and difficult setbacks, its breaking free from the limits of the here and now.

 

Wilwayco’s brushwork may have been called by critics “lyrical and eloquent,” but part of the fascination is the painterly marks of toil and tussle. It is these marks that provide the works’ immediacy, their dynamism and animatedness. In the struggle is the sublime.

 

Ultimately Wilwayco’s abstract expressionism has to contend not with the geometry of universals, but the interiority of the soul. “Recalibration” is not a rectification or even a recantation of the abstract ideal; it’s a readjustment of a personal style and a reaffirmation of the spirit.

 

Edwin Wilwayco’s “Recalibration” will run until July 31 at Momentous Arts, 1557 Keppel Road, Singapore. Call +65-9641-3235; visit www.momentousarts.com.