On the canvasses of Hiraya Gallery's new Filipino artist, 37-year old Armenius Leynes, a native of Binangonan, Rizal, the sight of the fisherman's banca can be a weepy symbol of the human fate or a naughty allusion about human pairing and sad obsessions. With their allegorical titles, the listless vessel/s of an aquatic occupation in the Laguna Lake tell "TALES FROM BANCAS," the title of his one-man exhibition which runs from May 27 to June 14.

His precise shapes and fine lines reveal Leynes' early skills in drafting, a course which he completed at the Rizal Polytechnic College in 1993. A self-developed artists, Leynes renders his objects in cool-looking shimmers of mixed acrylic paints of blue, yellow, brown and red. These skills in fine arts enable him to vest on his works a subtle element of alchemy on his subject. His bancas achieve a shade of human forms, a recognition which justifies his choice of titles that allude to the human states in life.

His titles group his works according to three themes. The single junk in "Destiny," "Immortal," and "Achiever" expresses the triad of his visions about accomplishments and generational worth. The proximity in distance between the junks in "Two of Us," "Father and Son," "Twins," and "Buddy-Buddy" are attributes of soulmates which Leynes idealizes. It is his communication of harmony, security and remaining connected. His state of alarm and agitation finds statements in "Loner," "Alone," and "Stranger."

In "Tales from Bancas," Leynes has found his fevered excitement. The stream of his themes are swollen symbols and statements of the existential life of the folksmen who have bred their art and their dreams through the picturesque objects of their daily preoccupation and incessant lives. The harmony of the heavens do not ask of men beyond this deeply-felt design of their lifetimes, as Leynes' bancas tell.