Lot 113
LEO ABAYA
b. The Philippines, 1960
HUMAN SHROUD, 2007
Signed and dated 'leo abaya 2007' with one seal of the artist (top right side)
Acrylic on canvas
76cm x 137cm
PROVENANCE
Private collection, Singapore.
ESTIMATE RM 4,000 - 6,000
PRICE REALISED RM 9,360 |
The monochrome work captures a sultry lovemaking in what looks like a secret rendezvous with the naked woman on her back below raising her bent left leg in ecstasy. Expected from someone who is an artist-filmmaker, Leo Abaya. What it comments on is open to interpretations – the Philippines social mores, perhaps, a stolen romp in the bed or a timely respect or even a snippet from a scene in one of the films he is involved in. Muro-Ami, perhaps, for which he won Best Production Design in the Metro Manila Film Festival; or Gred de Guzman’s film, Jose Rizal, for which he won the Gawad Urian award. Both were in 1999. The same year, he also won the FAMAS Awards and the Movie Production Designer of the Year Star Awards. In Art, he won the Juror’s Prize in the Artists Association of the Philippines competition in 1993. To cap a busy 1990s, he held his first solo, Bliss, at the West Gallery in 1997. Leo Abaya first graduated with a BSc in Commerce (Economics) at the Holy Name University in 1981. In 1995, he obtained his BA in Fine Arts, magnum cum laude, from the University Philippines in Diliman, and followed up with a Masters in Painting from the Winchester School of Art at the University of Southampton in Britain in 2004. For his film-making credentials, he had a Certificate in Short Filmmaking from the Universiti Philippines Film Centre Cinema, as part of his art programme. |