Lot description
Family signed and dated 1999 (lower right) oil on canvas 36" x 60" (91 cm x 152 cm) León Gallery wishes to thank the West Gallery for confirming the authenticity of this lot PROVENANCE Acquired directly from the artist WRITE UP: Ever the evolving artist, Mauro Malang Santos is noted for his distinctive and varying styles. Self-aware with his limited attention span, his differing aesthetic output is perhaps Malang’s best selling point. “I certainly do not regard myself as a ‘thinking’ painter. … I wouldn’t know how to justify why I paint the way I do. There are no ‘messages’ in my paintings.” he said in an interview with Cid Reyes. The end result is an emotion-driven oeuvre that is sure to evoke a deep-seated intensity from its viewer. However, this lack of a uniform style does not mean Malang lacks discipline in his craft. “I do not believe in doing different subjects just for the sake of changing subjects,” he said in the same interview. “I think you have to master one image, one form.” And commit to one image Malang does. Multiple depictions of barung-barong, flowers, and landscapes occupy his canvases and with the lot at hand, the muse that Malang depicts are women. A child in the 1930s, it was common for a young Malang to encounter women going about their way in their butterfly-sleeved dresses. It was a crossroad of tradition and modernism and Malang’s women recalled the traditionality of the early 1900s while embodying the modernity of his times. In this 1999 work, three figures – all big feet and big hands and pinpricks for eyes as is common with Malang’s dramatizations – sat shoulder to shoulder; one figure held a toddler on her lap while another had a child clinging to her skirts. Malang shows off his cunning relationship with colors – deep blues undercut with vibrant reds and rich greens. “There is no color he avoids, no hue or shades that he cannot orchestrate in his palette,” Cid Reyes writes and the lot at hand is an indubitable proof of Malang’s unorthodox palette and headstrong character. (Hannah Valiente)
