{"status":true,"msg":{"data":{"id":32998,"auction_id":40,"set_id":65,"lot_number":"86","artist":"Alfredo Esquillo  (b.1972)","title":"Eksit sa Itaas","starting_price":1600000,"signed_dated":"signed and dated 1998","medium":"oil on sawdust canvas","size":"60” x 48” (152 cm x 122 cm)","property":null,"coa":null,"provenance":null,"exhibited":null,"literature":null,"write_up":"s one of the foremost artists working in the vein of Social Realism, \nAlfredo Esquillo has cast a hard light on societal ills, especially those \nconcerning faith, religion, and belief. In this work, Eksit sa Itaas, \nEsquillo portrays ordinary folks as they navigate the labyrinthine spaces \nof day-to-day life. While every swing door has an “Exit” sign, it leads \nto the self-same enclosure, trapping them. Part of their navigation is \ntheir avowal of faith, which is represented by Crucifix adorned with \ngarlands of sampaguita and held aloft by a Black Nazarene devotee, \nwho is identified by his maroon shirt. Most of them wearing gas masks \nor holding handkerchiefs to their faces, they are assailed by an equivocal \nstench. Only the woman, whose determination to get to the end of \nthe maze is visible on her expression, seems not to mind, all the \nwhile carrying an infant. Seeming unaware and detached from the \ncommotions below is a long-haired flutist — a modern-day Orpheus. \nLying among cardboard clouds, he seems to have transcended the \npeople’s quotidian concerns — an image of leisure and inactivity that is \na stark contrast to what is transpiring below him. Eksit sa Itaas, in a way, \nis an allegory of the alternative solace of art, if we are to consider that \nreligion, as how Karl Marx puts, is the opium of the people.\nEsquillo’s noted focus religious images unconsciously began in high \nschool after developing a fascination for drawing churches. It was \nalso during this time when he learned how to paint with oils, under the \ntutelage of “commercial artists”.\nHis avowed inflenced are realists, led by Renato Habulan and Antipas \nDelotavo, both famed for their ortaits of the sociopolitical scenario. \nThe artist’s creative process is nothing mysterious: he always starts with \na theme, which to him calls the multiple beliefs, the argument between \nreligions, he eventually came up with the labyrinth as a symbol, an image \nwhich would pervade a majority of his works.\nEksit sa Itaas made the rounds of cultural institutions, such as the \nGeneralitat Valenciana (Valencia, Spain), Museo dela Iberia y \nLatino-America (Badajoz, Spain), Spanish Cultural Centre (Havana, \nCuba), Ponce Museum (Puerto Rico), and the Cultural Center of the \nPhilippines (Manila) before it was exhibited at Masa Kultura, Esquillo’s \nfirst solo exhibition, at the Hiraya Gallery in Manila in 1998","lot_group":"PAINTING","lot_details_html":null,"alias":null,"hp":3000000,"bp":0.168,"isWithdrawn":0,"accounting_hp":3000000,"userBid":5926,"isPaid":0,"userId":22,"lot_status":"SOLD","isDone":1,"bid_history_id":null,"reserve_price":null,"hammer_price":3504000,"fav":0},"image":[{"id":30956,"img_url":"https://leongallery.sgp1.digitaloceanspaces.com/v2/auction/40/65/lot/86.jpg","isFeatured":1}]},"increment":[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":85,"next":87,"count_bid":0,"bid_history":[],"tokenExpired":1}