ABSTRACTION through painting and drawing is a theme that threads through two successive solo shows by painter Rock Drilon, ?Recent Drawings? at Mag:net Katipunan Extension, until August 21; and ?New Paintings,? at Pablo, until August 22.

The shows chart the artist?s progression toward more dynamic and compact compositions.

The two shows demonstrate the tenuous yet symbiotic relationship between drawing and painting as Drilon?s chosen medium for conceptualizing the abstract.

Drilon?s take on two different artistic media differs considerably in terms of how these end up conveying the qualities of abstraction.

The works in ?Recent Drawings? recall Drilon?s own abstract sketches exhibited in 2005, and reflect his own evolving perspective toward this medium.

Drawings, far from being products of an incidental exercise or preparatory skill to painting, may also stand on their own insofar as their representational value and specific aesthetics are concerned. This view is reinforced by the act of featuring his collection of drawings, which stresses the point that drawings are in themselves artworks and not just accompaniments to paintings.

?Recent Drawings? consists mostly of geometric loops winding through space and through themselves. In ascribing meanings to forms, one wonders whether the drawings are a sign of resolving the process of rumination, as the artist is known for utilizing the language of abstraction to contain tangential references to the personal and the philosophical.

Personal process

Drilon?s drawings in pencil on paper contain entanglements that are now more compact and precise, perhaps denoting a personal process of tightly winding up rather than tentatively wandering around. Translucently layered and intertwined, his forms now cut and loop through space, completing and rounding up the cycle of entanglements.
While his recent drawings denote a process of winding up, Drilon?s new paintings shed light on another aspect of his moving forward. The artist still employs formal elements and familiar motifs from his past paintings ? the geometric bars, winding loops and cranial forms hanging like otheworldly cocoons ? but positions them in clearer yet more fluid constructions.

While the shapes do not always come together to assemble a whole within the compositions, they imply a converging or coming together of various motifs and formal elements.

The artist?s emphasis on texture and gesture accounts for the vivid and almost tangibly physical presence of the works. Departing from the sharp outlines exhibited by his drawings, Drilon allows shapes, palettes and textures to meander and let loose throughout the canvas.

The geometries seen in Drilon?s paintings are now less defined, represented instead through planes of texture and hue rather than precise linear forms.

Drilon?s acrylic abstractions on canvas end up being organic and free-flowing, rather than geometric or linear, in sensibility.

Symbolic progression

These recent exhibits arguably mark another period of progression in Drilon?s work as an artist. His exhibitions in 2007 and 2006 were mini-retrospectives of sorts, generally putting together representative works from the past to get one?s bearings on the present.
The artist pulled off a triad of simultaneous shows in 2006 at Mag:net?s three branches (the defunct ABS-CBN and Paseo de Roxas spaces and at Katipunan), featuring selected works accumulated over two decades.

This was followed by a more symbolically decisive exhibit in 2007, titled ?Moving on and Other Works,? which contained Drilon?s larger paintings and showcased a few new ones reflecting on personal and professional transitions of that period.

Viewed within the context of Drilon?s artistic production over the past five years, these two recent shows, along with the 2008 show, seem to be a response to this avowed process of rumination and moving on during the past years: moving forward from where the artist left off, and a quiet, reassuring sign that things are well back on track.