Oscar Zalameda (1930 - 2010)
Barung-Barong
signed and dated 1978 (lower right)
pastel on paper
21” x 30” (53 cm x 76 cm)

PROPERTY FORMERLY IN THE JOE GUEVARA
COLLECTION

Provenance:
Leon Gallery, The Spectacular Mid-Year Auction, June 13,
2015, Makati City, Lot 20

This painting is a prime example of Oscar Zalameda’s
developing interest in the elemental. As an artist, Zalameda
is primarily known for his groundbreaking visual figurations
of local Filipino life that combines aspects of abstraction,
brutalism, and cubism. But, Zalameda’s earlier works
encapsulate the artist’s experimental relationship with the
medium itself. His works often revolve around pure forms of
abstraction through playing with the relationship between
angle, shape, and light. This particular piece entitled Barung-
Barong captures Zalameda in the middle of his epochal shift
from pure abstraction to a much more figurative style.
Although always tender in observation and mood, Zalameda’s
abstract works avoid false sentimentality. His charming and
airy gestural abstraction is a happy collision of hazes, even
haphazard patterns of broken, contrasting monochromatic
tones. The subject of the piece is a perfect fit for Zalameda’s
style, given that it captures a chaotic reality but at the same
time retains a familiar sense of cohesion. The gestural strokes,
though too broad to be strictly speaking descriptive, provide
visual equivalents of natural objects and the feel of weather
effects that make an impact on the spectator just as they had
been executed with immediacy.