Untitled
signed and dated 1978 (lower right)
oil on canvas
30” x 30” (76 cm x 76 cm)

Provenance:
Private Collection

Onib Olmedo’s first exhibit at the Solidaridad Gallery in 1970 in a group show came through after another painter, Raul Lebajo, saw his works and decided that they did not belong to the Mabini Street kind of paintings which were classified as commercial. They definitely did not look pleasant or beautiful in the saccharine sense.

Onib has described his art as “imploding” into an inner universe where bodies glow from within like phosphorescent creatures in unfamiliar waters, at the same time that on a social plane they convey the sense of dehumanization and alienation.

This untitled work is from 1978 and is said to have been an entry in a competition sponsored by the United Nations Children’s Fund or Unicef.