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"Solitaryo: Pusoy into Art," the first
one-man exhibition of Filipino painter, Sakay is set to open
at Hiraya Gallery on July 19.
"Sakay" is really Guiliano Flores, now 35, of
Binangonan, Rizal. He is the second to the youngest of a
mostly female brood of 11, to whom poverty is no stranger.
Married at 20, and with four children of his own to-date,
life could only be tougher.
According to Sakay himself, his stylized human forms and,
to a certain extent, his color modulations- draw from a
few distinctive influences, foremost of which were Carlos
"Botong" Francisco and a certain Grunwald, a Renaissance
artist whose paintings he saw, while browsing at a bookstore.
As to the "figures" in his playing-card backgrounds
and motifs, they are conceptual dividends, according to
him, from those days in high school when he indulged in
the poor man's poker, pusoy, as well as tong-its. They more
than interact with the "main" subject, but suggest
in their reactive faces the artist's thematic preoccupations.
Sakay is hardly definitive in his concerns, which, at times,
come off, in effect, as a private joke. But much of these
is serious and, for that reason, worth the gamble on his
prospective maturity.
With "Solitaryo," Sakay says he hopes to start
gaining some recognition and, respect as an artist.
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