In Saturation Imbalance, Luis Lorenzana continues to develop new ways of thinking about and working with texture, pattern, and color. Whereas previous exhibits hinted at an artist consciously operating within a tradition while subverting it, this latest series finds him grappling primarily with his own instinct to correct and to make harmonious.

The surreal humanoid forms that feature in each piece are traces of his earlier work; in this sense Lorenzana is continuing an old artistic project, evolving and making strange traditional styles. This time, however, pattern is as important as figure, and collision is as crucial as harmony. Lorenzana has deliberately suspended what he describes as the “problem solving process” he usually applies to color and composition. This experiment is perhaps most aptly staged in the Snow White paintings in which this new, “imbalanced” method is used to rework a fairy tale that famously defines, or dictates, feminine beauty in terms of pure color. The emphasis on texture and material is encapsulated in the artists’s transformation of his own palettes. In these converted forms, a few added features – eyes, teeth, cheeks – give raw matter sudden human semblance. Elsewhere, imbalance allows for moments of individual reckoning. In Yesterboy, these formal or technical recalibrations make possible a more intimate process of self-examination. Time and memory become bound up in these changes of color, but pattern is constant, counterintuitively blurring the distinction between surface and interior.

With its surprising juxtapositions, its doubled subjects, and its use of language as a framing device, Saturation Imbalance assumes an engaged, incisive viewer. Each work is an invitation to not simply look but to think, and rethink. In Two Nudes, Four Donuts, One Ramen, female forms recline in a new tradition, shaped by commercial comforts. In Ultimo Guerrero, the twin images of Andres Bonifacio and the Ultimate Warrior create a striking, hopeful picture of heroism. Lorenzana’s exploration of new techniques has also fueled an expansion of scope. The exhibit draws together personal history, a shared national history, and a disturbing contemporary moment that is still unfolding. The element of play persists in this exhibit – masks, flowers, a few vivid hues – but these exist alongside elements of violence both overt and implicit. Desaturation can, remarkably, be playful, but it is also sobering. The outline, the fissure, the word and, most importantly, the body itself – all signify differently within a wider and potentially brutal context, in which viewers must come to terms with their participation in an entirely different sort of spectacle. Land of the Free, for instance, rearranges familiar symbols into a disconcerting picture. It toys with scale, subordinating a simplistic understanding of country to a more complicated cartography that takes into account uglier truths. One cannot view the map without coming to terms with the action (or inaction) of its citizens. Flamekeepers addresses these darker realities but manages to keep hope alive. Gen X pop culture images are not merely nostalgic traces of childhood. Framed by a provocative headline, they continue to function as expressions of an optimism that prevails in spite of the state of the nation.

Words by Michaela Atienza

Having originally graduated with a degree in Public Administration, Luis Lorenzana (b. 1979, Manila, Philippines) is a self-taught artist and illustrator who creates his own unique brand of pop surrealist works. He has participated in over 20 group and solo shows in Hong Kong, Germany, and the Unites States. The artist has also been a finalist for the Philip Morris Philippine Art Awards, the International Book Illustration Competitions and the Metrobank Art and Excellence Awards.