Jose Tence Ruiz (b. 1956)

Lot description

Anghel de la Gracia signed and dated 2011 (bottom) oil on primed linen 40” x 35” (102 cm x 89 cm) Provenance: Galleria Duemila, Inc. A Filipino contemporary visual artist known for his politically charged works across painting, sculpture, and installation, as well as a key figure in the Philippines’ social realist movement since the 1970s, Jose Tence Ruiz’s Anghel de la Garcia presents a masterpiece that showcases his mastery in visual art that blends religious imagery with criticism of social realities. Featuring a human figure with a halo and a heavy spiral shell that seems to “fossilize” by time across the canvas, the artist perfectly represents a paradoxical “angel”—a thinker confronting the accumulated weight of history, ideology, and social decay. Ruiz’s Anghel de Garcia transforms visual language into a modern allegory of the burden of knowledge and history. (Mark John Castañeda)