ATTENDING TO MY STONE

" Attending To My Stone "
August 3 - 29, 2007

On August 3, 2007, Roberto Robles opens another solo show in Galleria Duemila, where he has showcased his works since 1995. “It is a summary of more than ten years with Silvana Diaz and Galleria Duemila,” the artist says with a smile.

It was his correspondence with a poet he met abroad that inspired the title of this exhibit. He would write her at the end of a letter, “I must get back and attend to my stones.”

“It began that I was attending to my stones and I had lain down to rest, but my sleep was interrupted by the sound of ripe mangoes falling on my roof.”

- Roberto Robles

Robles is known for his works in stone as well as his paintings. He studied sculpting stone in Japan and Korea, working with marble and granite, respectively. As of late, though he feels that he has been interrupted in his work with stone. Perhaps titling his exhibition “Attending to My Stone” will return him to that.

His basic outline for this exhibition is a summary indeed,

of fleeting moments, with life being difficult but always beautiful and meaningful, of feeling delight with the simple joys and learning to appreciate each day. The exhibit will feature more of Robles’ paintings, and some installations. As with his previous works, there is a Zen-like quality to his paintings, as always finding solace in nature, which the ancestral home where he lives and works in Batangas affords him. The artist is always contemplative, a continuity of past works, an ongoing narrative of his story, which is the story we all have…for he believes we all want the same thing: Harmony with life.

His paintings are that of early mornings, watching the sun come up through the foliage of the mango trees. You can feel the peacefulness of the mornings, warmth and light breaking through the darkness. It makes us ask, we are here, but now what? Like a poet, he poses this question to the universe, at the same time celebrating fundamental and simple joys, remembering, touching base with home…“layering of memories that is put into canvas with strokes of paint or into the stone”

This exhibit will surely garner Roberto Robles further critical acclaim.

Roberto M.A. Robles is a painter and sculptor, graduating from the University of the East, School of Music and Fine Arts, Manila in 1980, was a research student in the Institute of Art and Design, University of Tsukuba City, Japan in 1992 where he got his Master of Fine Arts, Majoring in Sculpture in 1995. He has been exhibited by Galleria Duemila since 1995. From 1998 to 2001 he was a member of the faculty in the Department of Studio Arts (Sculpture) in the University of the Philippines, from 1995-97 he was the Dean of the College of Fine Arts, University of the East, where he taught in the Advertising Design Department in the School of Music and Fine Arts in the 80s. His work has been commissioned in the Magallanes Church, in the Atlanta Center in Manila, Philippines, in the Lopez Development Center Manila, and for ABS-CBN. Besides Galleria Duemila, he has had solo exhibitions in around Manila: in Alliance Francaise; CCP; Sining Kamalig Gallery and abroad at the SLOT Gallery, Sydney Australia; the Red Mill Gallery in Vermont, USA. He has been a part of group exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum, the Lopez Memorial Museum, Ayala Museum and in other countries such as Singapore, Paris, Australia, South Africa, South Korea, Chile and Japan.


For exhibition inquiries, please call 831-9990 and 833-9815, or email duemila@mydestiny.net