{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":61677,"auction_id":209,"set_id":242,"lot_number":"99","artist":"Onib Olmedo (1937 - 1996)","title":"Mother and Child","starting_price":400000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 1978 (lower right)","medium":"oil on canvas","size":"30” x 30” (76 cm x 76 cm)","property":null,"coa":"Accompanied by a certificate issued by Ms. Gisella Olmedo-Araneta confirming the authenticity of this lot","provenance":"Finale Art File","exhibited":"Heritage Art Center, Onib Olmedo: 4th One-Man Exhibition of Paintings, San Juan, 28 November - 14 December 1978","literature":null,"write_up":"Created just a year before his career-defining Gold Medal from the Art Association of the Philippines, Onib Olmedo’s 1978 Mother and Children perfectly illustrates the certain je ne sais quoi that had cemented the artist’s enduring legacy in the Philippine art scene. Here, Onib gives his own savage twist to the mother-and-child scene that has captivated many artists before and after him; with his usual distortion, Onib’s mother and child are noticeably desolate, faces downcast and eyes eerily realistic, staring into nothingness.<br/><br/>The most arresting element in this piece, however, is the faceless, featureless child hovering behind the motherdaughter duo. One-half of the children referenced in the title, the viewer is left to wonder what or who this specter of a child is and the story of his haunting.<br/><br/>Mother and Children was created mere seven years after Onib’s formal debut in the art scene with his Singkong Suka exhibition in 1971; thus, it still has the artist’s earlier creative fingerprints. With an inverted triangular face, Onib draws the eye first to the broad, flat temple and the mournful eyes of the pair, then down to their full, downturned mouths that spoke of their bitter lot in life. The mother’s eyes, in particular, were quite fascinating: in comparison to her child’s curious, naïve gaze, hers is heavier, more world-weary. She knows the world’s suffering, even more so than the flesh-and-blood child she holds firmly against her body or the waifish memory of a kid that haunts her.<br/><br/>It is the expressions on their faces that cemented Onib as an expressionist artist of his own caliber. His soul portraits are deliberately devoid of a specific context — they are characterized merely by their haunted expression, the infinitesimal slope of their shoulders telling a thousand stories and none at the same time.<br/><br/>“And herein lies the incipient horror,” writes eminent art critic Alice G. Guillermo in Onib Olmedo: Dimensions of Depth, “we do not merely confront a human likeness presented to our view; the image itself becomes transformed into a mirror where one sees and ultimately recognizes oneself. Thus, the encounter turns into a revelation of one’s submerged identity.” <br/><br/> Onib’s removal of the social context in his soul portraits is no mere accident. The face itself becomes the social commentary; the eyes become the mirror in which one’s identity is reflected. What his figures are is what his audience perceives them to be, each of them leaving with different interpretations than the ones before him. In Mother and Children, that same essence prevails: they could be a palpably physical presence just as much as they could be a manifestation of past guilt and suffering. What they could be is entirely up to the audience, as they hold a conversation with the artist himself that transcends time and space. (Hannah Andrea Valiente)","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":600000,"bp":0.2016,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":600000,"userBid":5930,"isPaid":0,"userId":34,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":25248,"reserve_price":0,"hammer_price":720960,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":68644,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/209/242/lot/99.jpg","isFeatured":1},{"id":68988,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/209/242/lot/99a.jpg","isFeatured":0},{"id":68825,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/209/242/lot/99b.jpg","isFeatured":0},{"id":68824,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/209/242/lot/99c.jpg","isFeatured":0},{"id":68823,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/209/242/lot/99d.jpg","isFeatured":0}]},"increment":[450000,500000,550000,600000,650000,700000,750000,800000,900000,1000000,1100000,1200000,1300000,1400000,1500000,1600000,1700000,1800000,1900000,2000000,2200000,2400000,2600000,2800000,3000000,3200000,3400000,3600000,3800000,4000000,4200000,4400000,4600000,4800000,5000000,5500000,6000000,6500000,7000000,7500000,8000000,8500000,9000000,9500000,10000000,11000000,12000000,13000000,14000000,15000000,16000000,17000000,18000000,19000000,20000000],"prev":98,"next":100,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}