MANILA, Philippines - For sheer size alone, Tito Estrada?s canvases are impressive. And with the acrylic textured with shell and sand and aburst with vibrant colors on that scale, they practically dazzle.

The dazzling artworks can be viewed on lobbies of hotels such as the Philippine Plaza and in the artist?s Galleria Estrada on 100 Scout Rallos St., Quezon City. Meanwhile, his exhibit ?Symphony at Sea? is ongoing at the Philippine Center in New York.

These are not Art Outré per se, but they can be viewed as such for their strong resemblance to the patterned abstraction of those postwar German painters.

At first glance, one is grabbed by the bold hues, the curvilinear patterns, and the luminescent squares, rectangles and circles of capiz shell glued on the color field. One would naturally think this is abstraction until one looks closer and sees shapes hinting at figures.

The chartreuse curlicues against blood-red in ?Fernshoots? do, indeed, suggest the shoots and tendrils of a fern.

Things don?t take shape in one?s eyes until one reads the titles of the pieces. Two yellow-green curving forms against flame-red become a still life after reading the title ?Water Melon.?

Two similar pieces of interlapping circles of red, green, orange, gold and magenta gradually reveal themselves with their titles ?In Flight? and ?Paper Balloons.?

Two other pieces, ?Fireflies? and ?Perlas ng Silangan,? are but nebulous clouds of green and blue, respectively, studded with circular bits of capiz. But when light is directed toward them, the canvases instantly swarm with luminous insects and lustrous pearls.

Two very large diptychs, ?Seaweeds? and ?Abyssal Fire,? have the same visual effect. The first is a rather unremarkable streaking of green and violet with capiz scattered about. But placed in a dim room and spotlighted, it assumes a glimpse of a kingdom under the sea, the shells naturally nestling among the trailing seaweeds.

The second is truly remarkable. Here the canvas is drenched in yellow and flame-red, then streaked with curving lines of yellow-green with each curlicue embellished with a capiz valve. Switch on the light and the canvas is on fire.

Even then, Estrada?s figuration would seem incidental to his art. What we find most notable are his expressive use of line and color and his austere pattern-making. His art then should qualify as lyrical abstraction.

Estrada is relatively unknown as a painter. A graduate of Business Management, he worked as a foreign-currency analyst in a bank until he ventured into art and went full-time.

He put up an antique shop which he eventually turned into a gallery. He has also evolved into an interior designer of note.

And now this. What is arguably a loss in the banking sector is clearly a gain in the art world.