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HIRAYA GALLERY starts 2006 with the exhibition of the provocative impressionistic works of FERNANDO MODESTO, a Filipino expatriate whose paintings have been featured in major art museums and private collections in Asia and Europe. Based in Indonesia for almost two decades already, Modesto unfolds in his return exhibition large masterpieces under the title "The Mystical Planet of Modesto".

Modesto blows into our planet, and ultimately the whole universe, his self-styled religious and scientific thesis. Every creation or its perceived reality posesses a harmonious co-existence of two forces. The planet Earth is surrounded by heaven, the sea mirrors the sky, men have guardian angels and soul mates, light flashes out from darkness, balls rest in twos. He calls it the bipolar state of reality.

He enshrines his subject thorugh this thesi. "The Angel Peeping Through The Window" shows two worlds: heaven with a huge window and a giant angel looking out to the affairs of men. "The X and Y Universe" divides the galaxy with an angel walking across a flat table where planets rest. Modesto draws this idea of an imagined world that floats in a large ethereal space where angels romp and play. He rests his faith that within this enclosing space, chaos and control co-exists.

He navigates around this bi-polar content of his mindscape views. He dashes off the horizon and relates an epidermal beauty of a cream colored beach rolling next to the splatter of blazing hues of a sunset-laden sky in "Bali". The brushwork transfers this windblowing spurts to a strong emotional response of the gazer. There is the euphoric ode to the French seaside scene of bather and sand in "Tina Chow" superimposed with oranges and angular window panes. In these canvasses, the separate elements stir emotions within the viewer. Deliberately he uses the dialectics of two spaces to reach out and deliver a punch in the heart.

"Sydney Harbor" is a tapestry of thousands of twos fluttering in the gush of nature. It is stealth of splendor which heaven will never duplicate because they are mundane and common from the plain while they look wispy from the window of the sky. About them, Modesto has taken his joyous flight high above their myriad.

Modesto works with oil, a wieldy medium yet perfect for an impressionist artist like him. "My paintings are a riot of colors," he says. Lemon yellow lights up his canvasses while green soothes his eyes. He is wary about his use of pink because he sees the color to express his angst towards his subject and its transitory character. He chooses ultramarine as the color of the quietness of living and the stillness of being.

Modesto describes these various observations about his work as expressions of his "mid-life experiences". While he is past the "Big 5-0" and wizened by 30 years of travel in the cosmopolitan world capitals of art, he keeps an indescribable sense of humor in his conversations and an infectious wonderment about life turns.