{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":1945,"auction_id":4,"set_id":5,"lot_number":"45","artist":"Lao Lianben (b. 1948)","title":"Thinking of a View","starting_price":3000000,"signed_dated":"signed (verso) and dated 1983 (center and verso)","medium":"mixed media","size":"35\" x 48\" (89 cm x 122 cm)","property":null,"coa":null,"provenance":"Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner","exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"As a painter, Lao Lianben focuses more on attitude \nand essence rather than style. His is an art that \nis rooted in personal struggles and profound \nconfrontations with the vicissitudes and contradictions \nof a turbulent world. In a February 2023 interview with \nLala Singian published in Lifestyle Inquirer, Lao revealed \nthat the odds did not always favor him. As a child, he \nlived in a cramped house along Arlegui Street in Quiapo \nwith his mother, grandmother, six siblings, and two \nhelpers. “Things were in complete disarray as there was \nreally no one in charge of the household,” Lao says. “To \nescape the daily chaos, I would go up to the roof and \nkeep to myself. That was the only space in the house \nwhere I could be free.”
\nFrom the “grueling hot nights,” as Lao puts it, and \nswarms of mosquitoes pestering what is supposed \nto be a peaceful sleep for him and his family, it was a \ndepressing cul-de-sac. But that very moment of struggle \nand seemingly helpless conditions came an artistic \nawakening in Lao’s inner soul—and the birth of the \nZen spirit inside of him that continues to be a balm \nfor a constantly distressing and disconcerting earthly \nexistence.
\nLao recalls in the same interview: “I have learned to \nput myself to sleep and not complain of discomfort by \nstaring up intently at the mosquito net while I try to make \nout figures of animals (an elephant) or imagine that I’m \nlooking up into the night sky of cloud formations. My \nimagination and musings made me forget about my \nbody drenched in sweat and lulled me to sleep. Through \nthis experience, I have not only learned to see with my \neyes but also to think with them. Looking back, I must \nsay that my art process is greatly informed by what I see, \nand my ideas are developed more visually.”
\nNow that we have taken a glimpse into the artist’s early \nstruggles and history comes a better understanding \nof this absorbing piece titled Thinking of a View, a \nwork from Lao’s earlier artistic phases. Thinking of a \nView comes from the same period when Lao won the \nprestigious Mobil Art Award in 1983. Prior to that, Lao \nhad already relished the taste of success, having won in \nthe Art Association of the Philippines (AAP) Annual an \nhonorable mention in 1970 and second prize in 1977.
\nPerhaps the most intriguing part of this piece is the \ncenter, which is outlined with grids, evoking two areas \nof discipline: visual art and cartography. In maps, grids \nhelp determine the exact location of a particular place \nusing latitude and longitude. In the visual arts, especially \nin drawing, grids are of utmost importance in rendering \nsubjects accurately, stimulating spatial awareness, and \nensuring accurate proportions.
\nThe center, formed by Lao’s cutting of this portion of the \ncanvas, possesses an inherently instinctive atmosphere, \nas evidenced by Lao’s scraping of the surface, leaving \njarring scratches and forming crevices that expose the \ncomposition’s wooden base.
\nWith this interesting intertwining of cartography—the \nscience of map making—and the freedom inherent in \nthe visual arts, Lao highlights an inner landscape (a \nspiritual vista if one may deem it) of the psyche that is \nborne from observation, nourished by contemplation, \nand immortalized by an artist who genuinely lives \nhis own art: an art that centers around the beauty of \ndynamic and sublime stillness.
\nBy spontaneously scraping his composition, Lao empowers \nhis subconscious to flow unbridled, revealing his penchant \nfor the soothing solemnity of active musing; his spiritual \nmind is unraveled, and it invigorates the viewer to engage \nin the virtue of one’s peace and quiet.
\nIn a work that speaks to its viewer, it evokes in us Lao’s \nearly life: harnessing thinking through seeing, in which the \ninvisible is made visible, the abstract becomes a palpable \nreality, and the imagined turns to actuality. Lao comfortingly \nstimulates us to do the same. (Adrian Maranan)","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":5500000,"bp":0.2016,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":5500000,"userBid":6957,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":null,"hammer_price":6608800,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":1975,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/4/5/lot/45.jpg","isFeatured":1}]},"increment":[5500000,6000000,6500000,7000000,7500000,8000000,8500000,9000000,9500000,10000000,11000000,12000000,13000000,14000000,15000000,16000000,17000000,18000000,19000000,20000000],"prev":44,"next":46,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}