Galleria Duemila presents its most recent collection of small-scale still life works and seascapes by artist, cultural writer and editor Alfredo Roces.

Entitled Landscape / Still Life, Roces’ latest one-man show presents the artist’s renditions of nature created at home and in Australia, where he is currently staying.

The exhibit runs from January 15 – 31, and features Galleria Duemila’s collection of Roces’ works in oil and acrylic on canvas, depicting various everyday objects and scenes that speak of aesthetic beauty in their simplicity.

Roces creates worlds and spaces where nature and people converge in unseen ways: cultivated house blooms retain the intense hues of wild flowers. Succulent tropical fruits and marine life are spread by unseen hands on his canvases, as if on a feast.

As a practicing artist, Roces’s transition from abstract to figurative works occurred in the late 1960’s. Roces, however, has never entirely abandoned the visual vocabulary of abstraction, incorporating it’s stylistic features into his figurative works.

His art works are never illustrative in nature. In terms of technique, Roces suggests -rather than depicts- real, everyday objects through his gestures and brush strokes. In his still lifes and seascapes, a piece of tropical fruit, blossoms, fish freshly-hauled from the sea, or the breaking of waves on a distant shore are all implied, instead of directly illustrated, by swathes and strokes of pigment.

"I consciously strive for illusion," Roces says.

"My approach to Realism is not to duplicate reality but to create the illusion of it."

Thus, he merges elements of abstraction in his tranquil figurative works. He likewise incorporates assemblage and collage into several of his still life paintings.

Roces completed his Fine Arts degree at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana in 1954 and took up his post-graduate studies in drawing technique under George Grosz at the Art Students League in New York. Upon returning to the Philippines, Roces has since then engaged himself in numerous artistic and critical pursuits. His list of one-man and group exhibitions in the Philippines include major shows at the National Museum and the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Luz Gallery, Art Association of the Philippines national shows, Solidaridad Gallery, and many more.

From 1972 to 1978, Roces also served as editor-in-chief of Filipino Heritage, a ten-volume study of Philippine culture.

The exhibit opens on January 15 and runs until January 31.

Galleria Duemila is located at The Artwalk, 4th Fl/ SM Megamall A, Ortigas, Mandaluyong, Metro Manila. For more information, contact Rufina Fajardo or Lhorie Galvez-Chan at 634-3261, telefax 633-6687.

For more information about the artist, visit The World of Alredo Roces