Roel Obemio
December 10 – 21, 2021
Artists’ reception
December 10 | 3 PM
Art Lounge Manila
Ground Level of The Podium in Ortigas Center
ADB Ave., cor. Julia Vargas, Ortigas Center Mandaluyong, Philippines
Roel Obemio is a painter known for his volumetric figurations of storybook characters and, more recently, his appropriation of classic old-world paintings in a style similar to Colombian painter Fernando Botero (a style often called Boterisimo). While Botero uses his practice as a means of critique, Obemio uses volume as a narrative device to convey whimsy and fantasy.
With the easing of the lockdowns, and with our life returning to a semblance of normalcy, Rod Obemio picks up the pace to match his usual pre-pandemic stride and presents 36 works at Art Lounge Manila for his 18th solo exhibition entitled OBEMIO. The exhibition opens on December 10 and runs until December 21, 2021, at Art Lounge Manila, at The Podium.
Interestingly, OBEMIO, the self-titled solo exhibition, is his 18th solo exhibition comprised purely of works on paper. Among the 36 artworks presented, more than half of which are drawings – from quick sketches to built-up, fully fleshed-out drawings of masterful crosshatching. “Drawing is the honesty of art,” as Dali once said. And in the show OBEMIO, we see the artist at his most raw and natural state. By drawing, Dali also is quoted that “There is no possibility of cheating. There’s only good d bad art.” And surely, the drawings on the exhibit show Obemio’s mastery of his craft.
The rest of the works are watercolor and pastel works. As a whole, there are themes that echo the different series that Obemio is known for: Homages, or the reworking of iconic high art pieces such as Raphael’s “The Three Graces,” Sandro Boticelli’s “The Birth of Venus,” Sir Frederic Leighton’s “Flaming June,” Mindy Sommer’s “Cherubs” among others into the trademark Obemio style of rounded visages often with a humorous twist. The facemask or “covid” inspired series. And lastly, the colorful vignettes, many of which are dreamy and tender – qualities that have persisted in his previous solo exhibitions.
Before breaking into the art scene with his highly successful first solo exhibition in 2006, Roel Obemio worked as an animator in the now-defunct studio of Hanna-Barbera. This inevitably affected his art, instilling in it a flair for narrative, a skill in composition, and a mastery in evoking mood. But it is the qualities of tenderness and dreaminess, other than his humor, which seem to define the character of the artist himself. And these are what can be seen in OBEMIO.
~ Ricky Francisco, Curator
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