Lot description
Ang Kiukok (1931 - 2005) Fighting Figures signed and dated 1984 (upper left) oil on canvas 48” x 26” (122 cm x 66 cm) Provenance: Private collection, Manila Literature: Roces, Alfredo. Kiukok: Deconstructing Despair . Finale Art Gallery. Mandaluyong City. 2000. p. 323 Ang Kiukok’s body of work is described as having the elements of the Philippine Modernist School of the 1950s wherein the canvas is composed of the interaction of hues and forms within a dense composition. One may notice that he employs the Chinese approach to art of capturing the intrinsic nature of the subject through a meticulous and conscientious preliminary study to encapsulate its full expression as the unconstrained brush strokes are laid out on the canvas. There is a claustrophobic atmosphere in Ang Kiukok’s depiction of human despair. His human figures suffer from varied phases of agony. The three figures, in a desperate attempt to escape from their anguish, find an outlet for their angst in the confinement of one another. Their arms are bound as they vent out a seemingly endless cry for alleviation. There is a distinct style in Kiukok’s depiction of despair. In defiance of what seems to be an apparent outburst of color and chaotic forms, “the paintings draw their strength from a well-crafted, carefully-orchestrated arrangement of lines, colors, and patterns,” as mentioned by Alfredo Roces in Kiukok: Deconstructing Despair. Amid the suffocating darkness and anguish in his subject matter, Kiukok’s impulse to put harmony into dissonance is still manifested.
