A new decade symbolizes new beginnings, but for art and antique aficionados, welcoming the new year also means fresh acquisitions and new curated collections. Welcoming and venturing 2020, León Gallery welcomes this new decade with the León Exchange Online 14.
The upcoming auction boasts an extravagant collection ranging from modern to contemporary masters; with the likes of Mauro Malang Santos, Onib Olmedo and H.R. Ocampo to Benji Reyes, Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan, and Mark Justiniani.
Headlining the beloved modernists, despite being primarily known as a painter of genre scenes, Mauro Malang Santos would flex his creative muscles once in a while and compose his unique and interesting “Still Life” in a more telltale effect. Shedding light to the beautifully grotesque and grotesquely beautiful, Onib Olmedo draws from the dark and dramatic realms of a fantastic nightmare in a figurative-expressionist manner focused on portraying the human spirit’s triumph in the face of excruciating pain and suffering. Highly inspired by the revival of the Space Age and the art movement Futurism, it was in 1953 when Hernando R. Ocampo created the boceto of his dynamic and wisely visualized work “Starward.”
Venturing into the colorful Filipino contemporary art scene, artist, designer, design consultant and craftsman, Benji Reyes highlights the ingenuity of Filipino design, the beauty of Philippine hardwoods and the sustainable way of furniture making in his very own “functional sculptures”—a unique fusion of utilitarian furniture and fanciful sculptures. Both partners in life and art, Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan show the greener side of art and ensure the formation of aesthetic ecology with the use of materials that serve as a metaphor for everyday human life in their artwork “Under the Viridian Sky.” While contemporary master Mark Justiniani again showcases his social realist roots and magic realist strains in his “Untitled” work, “Balikbayan Box” and “Key.”
Also, in this sale are works by Jose Joya, Vicente Manansala, Ramon Orlina, Araceli Limcaco-Dans, Edwin Wilwayco, Angelito Antonio and Prudencio Lamarroza.
Preview will be on Jan. 15-17, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., at W14 La Fuerza Plaza, 2241 Chino Roces Ave, Makati, Philippines.
