The Littlle Boy at Five Two and Oh

I saw a litte cloud up in the air

tiny droplets of blue haze

swirling and twirling peacefully

as I intently fixed my gaze

Expecting to see it form into a car,

a boat, a dragon or a horse

as clouds normally do,

a gust of wind blew

and it is gone after two

the boy at five two and oh

my bundle of joy, source of my laughter

my warmth and my relief

never denying me of the tightest hugs

sweetest kisses as he welcomes me with delight.

Sorry my dear but I cannot share

your fondness for the iron beasts

while you look at them with glee

as they roar and pass us by.

I know it will take you away from me.

I could have helped mould you into a fine shape

with my bare hands, my experience

and most of all my heart

but this boy at five two and oh

has left as I feared.

I couldn’t even ignite the fire

of the kiln to harden the shape he is in.

The cloud is now settled on a different shore

where it would form into a stallion, a unicorn

an angel perhaps and I cannot see it transform.

The boy at five two and oh

Shall have a different tongue

I can barely understand

He will have no memories of me

for he has just turned two.

I shall always bear in my heart

his tight embrace, flying kisses

the wonder in his eyes

his grunts and requests to take him out

to walk in the park

Goodbye for now my sweet little child

I hope I have planted something in your heart.

Lolo pogi

My Art

 I just received a very interesting query from a very good friend of mine, Dave Buenviaje, definitely a connoisseur of the arts who has gone to different museums in Europe and other places with his wonderful wife, Drea, marveling at the masters. I am very much pleased that he would take notice of my work - enough to pique his interest and pose a query. It goes something like this:

"Tito Rolly, serious question... but hope it lands well. Your style is like the furtherance of a conversation with the great HR Ocampo. Is this a conscious effort, or is there a historical, artistic connection that ties you to that style? How you're pushing the works is very interesting. Sana art historians will see this"

This question made me ponder and try to understand how my style came to be. This is what i have come up with:

----------------------------------

It is quite interesting that you would have been reminded of H.R. Ocampo viewing my work. I can understand where this is coming from. He is one of my favorite Filipino painters alongside Cesar Legaspi, Vicente Manansala and Botong Francisco. As you can probably have noticed, their styles border on cubism as well.

My style is brought about by a project in college. In that project, I experimented overlapping the colors with a different color resulting from the merger ex. the juxtaposition of yellow and blue – resulting in green. It is that very basic concept that I try to capture in my paintings. The project I am referring to is somewhat of a Tsuru bird as it takes off amid a landscape of a field and a big, robust sun. You could just imagine that my palette was generally warm colors. I liked what I saw, but did not do anything about it. It was later on in life, while trying to develop a style, that I am reminded of the experiment and over time had made improvements on it. What I would do is draw several targeted forms, mostly people and apply overlapping colors resulting in transparent figures, hence the name transparent cubism, a name made popular by Manansala which and I decided to call my style..

So, my style is the interplay of colors that would from cubes unintentionally, hence its cubist tendencies further developing, this time, consciously and intentionally into transparent figures. The forms, when viewed from afar and without any effort to dissect the overall appearance would look like H. R. Ocampo’s design. However, a closer inspection of the work would reveal figures which would probably be reminiscent of Legaspi, Manansala and to some extent, Botong Francisco. Having looked at their works, admiring their skill somewhat rubbed off on me, I guess. So there! Not exactly a treatise, but nevertheless an explanation of what style my work is trying to conjure.

Magnificat

Oil on Canvas

20 X 30 in

Anticipated Vibrations

Oil on Canvas

                    30 x 30 in