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About the artist
Ramon
Orlina was born in Manila, Philippines. After completing his architectural
degree at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, he practiced architecture
until 1974. He then began his career in art painting, eventually turning to
sculpture. Drawing from his experience as an architect, Orlina chose to create
sculptures from glass which he felt at that time had most potential in
expressing his visual imagery. Exploring forms though glass cullets or crystal
blocks, the artist continue to exploit their translucent quality and smooth
finish produced from months of reshaping and grinding.
His
abstract sculptures are composed of a series of angles through creating sharp
edges or sleek bends that denote movement and fluid lines. By playfully
manipulating varying qualities of light entering and trapped at different
angles, his sculptures are never static masses. They are not only
3-dimensional, sculpture-in-the-round objects, but multi-dimensinal
constructions with no front or back orientation. One can view his pieces from
any point of view and interpret them beyond the artist's intended form.
In
this sense, Orlina's achievement is in freeing the viewers to see his
sculptures in anyway they choose. He also frosts sections of the surfaces with
figurative motifs by etching directly onto the glass while leaving most parts
of it polished and smooth. The illusions created through the various prisms
intensify the viewer¹s imagination.
A
multi-awarded glass sculptor, Orlina¹s reputation extends to art circles and
patrons in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Japan, U.S.A. and the former
Czechoslovakia. He has represented the Philippines in the XVII Grand Prix
Internationale D' Arte Contemporaine de Monte Carlo in 1977; the Bienale
Internationale de Arte, Valparaiso, Chile in 1987; the Suntory Prize
Exhibition, Japan in 1994; the Toyamura International Sculpture Biennale, Japan
in 1995 , the 9th Asian International Art Exhibition, Taipeh, 1994; the Osaka
Sculpture Triennale, Japan in 1992 and 1995. The artist has been commissioned
for public art sculptures and has exhibited extensively.
Awards
for Visual Arts in Kuala Lumpur from the ASEAN Business Forum. From 1992 to the
present time he has led the Art Association of the Philippines as its
president.
He
was conferred the ASEAN Awards for Visual Arts in 1993 by the ASEAN Committee
on Culture and Information (COCI) in Brunei and in 1994, he received the 3rd
ASEAN Achievement Awards for Visual Arts in Kuala Lumpur from the ASEAN
Business Forum. From 1992 to the present time he has led the Art Association of
the Philippines as its president.
The
year 1999 marked a high point in Orlina's career with his winning the "Mr.
F Prize" of the pre'99 in Hokkaido, Japan. This biennial attracted 956
entries from 65 participating countries competing in all mediums. The winning
piece of Orlina was a dazzling white optical glass sculpture called
"Silvery Moon".
In
the turn of the Millennium, Ramon Orlina has pondered on the multi-faceted
nature of his work, and decided to augment it with the introduction of tubular
stainless steel, a phase firstsuggested in "Basketball Mi Mundo"
which won the coveted First Prize in the sculpture category of the II
International Biennale of Basketball in the Fine Arts held in Madrid in
January, 2000.
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In his more than 25 years as a sculptor, Ramon Orlina has consistently shown excellence, originality and daring sculptor.