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About the artist
Olazo was born in Balayan, Batangas in the Philippines in
1934. In 1951 he entered the fine arts program of the University Santo Tomas,
and went on first to make a name as a major printmaker, winning numerous awards
and exhibiting widely both in the Philippines and representing the Philippines
internationally as far afield as Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo and Sao Paolo.
Olazo began his career as an artist at a critical juncture, when the foundations of a modernist tradition were being laid, by key figures such as Vicente Manansala, Victorio Edades, HR Ocampo and Fernando Zobel. Olazo first came to the fore as a printmaker who made striking innovations in this field. This fed into the development of his Diaphanous series, a unique body of abstract paintings that “are veritable visions of light. They have been likened to dragonfly wings, sheets of gossamer veil or gauze, and even a symphony.”
In 1972, he was awarded the coveted Thirteen Artists Award by the Cultural Centre of the Philippines (CCP). In the 1970s he developed his renowned Diaphanous series of paintings. He has held regular solo exhibitions at pioneering galleries such as the Luz Gallery, and Finale Art File and major institutions such as the CCP in the Philippines since 1974. He was recently included in the book 13 Painters for the 21st Century.
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| 24x24 inches | 24x24 inches | 7x6 ft. |
20x16 inches
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Modern
painters continue the tradition of culling inspiration from the beauty of
nature. The natural world is clearly characterized by its precise linearity and
formation, and for artists that are predisposed to a given sensitivity, this is
evidence of transcendence, an indelible mark by a Higher Creator. This is no
escaping the awe of how the physical world is create. It is the primary source
of inspiration and contemplation, and of being.
Romulo
Olazo has
adapted the plant forms of the Anthurium into his abstract forms. He has
expressed his wonderment of the anthurium flower, captivated by the line of its
shape and silhouette of its leaf and suddenly, almost amusingly, of the pistil
that advances without inhibition, even at the verge of welcomed embarrassment.
The flower is poetic and symbolic, amusing and contrary, colourful and
unabashed. It is a flower icon that has suited Olazo's temperament. Among the
many species of the plant kingdom, the anthurium is one of a few Olazo has
reacted to and found more than a bit of solace. Perhaps echoing the sentiments
of the artists of the past that have seized the flower as windows to our souls,
Olazo has found an equivalent form in the natural world that he cannot leave
out in his pursuit of the abstract and non-representational.
In 1994,
almost twenty years after establishing his private visual language and genre of
Diaphanous paintings, the Diaphanous Anthuriums quietly came into being as
pastel sketches, intricately done, produced during the drawing sessions with
the Saturday Group of Artists at the Flower Farm in Tagaytay. Seeing its
potency, Olazo translated the anthurium form unto his canvas paintings in small
and large formats. To date, Olazo has produced around one hundred paintings in
the series that have found their way in private collections.