Marlon Magbanua
"Incidents"
Exploring the textures, patterns, movements, and shades of sound, abstract artist Marlon Magbanua creates an emotive visual language that at once decodes and then re-imagines the vast, dynamic range of everyday auditory experiences in the space of a single canvas. "Incidents," his fourth solo show to date, captures the most vivid yet mundane aural scenes: from the familiar, if comforting white noise of the city, underscoring the urban dweller’s existential conundrums, to the beerhouse tunes of the blind street musician, cackled through the shattered, booming bass of an old electric guitar, to the immutable silences of contemporary existence, framed, ironically enough, by the constant prattle of daily life.
Having come from a musical background, much of Magbanua’s work has involved an interplay of aural and visual constructs. The past few years, however, have seen an increased fascination with translating sound into color and form—literally, assigning both numerical and visual equivalents to the elements of sound. Given the functional quantification of visual elements (most familiar in digital imaging software), sound, Magbanua exerts, may very well find direct translation in images, given the right set of values and equations.
In his paintings, lines are a kind of time signature, with thinner lines indicating a faster pace and thicker lines a slower beat. Variations in hues define the pitch, with dark shades indicating lower notes and lighter shades higher ones, while textures indicate sound effects, such as the use of flangers or distortion pedals.
Color, on the other hand, functions more subjectively, conforming inevitably to cultural and psychological associations. For example, reds typically imply intensity or rage, blues melancholy, and blacks the metaphorical darkness of the soul. Magbanua’s only fixed value assignments are yellow representing the middle note, ‘sol,’ and grey representing the impossibility of absolute silence.
"Incidents" most notably departs from Magbanua’s previous work in its experimentations with greater color combinations and frenzied forms. While the artist takes off from his previous aesthetics—specifically, balancing smaller, seemingly standalone abstract paintings within a larger, contrasting abstract piece—his new works moves away from his previously quieter, more controlled and consequently minimal sensibility and towards more intense and eruptive compositions informed by the chaos and variability of urban environmental sounds.
"Basket Case," for example, represents the auditory experience of being in a marketplace, with agitated lines, scribbled in graphite and pencil, outlining and at times interrupting shapes and forms, and mix of both brighter, typically "happy" colors bordered by a looming darkness suggesting the organized pandemonium of the scene. In a suggestion of imagery, on the other hand, rows of box-like shapes, framed by thick, broken orange and white lines, seem to imply a bird’s eye view of lined-up stalls, while an overlapping image of a basket, its handle arching over the painting, would perhaps further enforce the visual connections.
"Thank You for Calling" reflects the now common experience of a call center agent working the graveyard shift: a play of blacks and greys recreate the immense loneliness and despondency of the job, implying silence in an envelopment of lower registers and dim, "neutral" noises. One central piece of the collection, "Uttering Blind Words," takes off from the artist’s experience of stopping to listen to a blind musician playing somewhat obliviously in the heart of Ortigas, where he was obviously ignored by the busy, impatient, indifferent crowd around him. The faint color gradations over the main shade of yellow, which create a richer and deeper totality, impress more of a contemplative rather than blithely happy tone to the image, and the compact, minimal arrangement of forms and contained bursts of color seem to suggest the struggle to find release—music, perhaps, desperately fighting to not be drowned out in the city’s blare.
Marlon Magbanua is a graduate of Fine Arts at the Technological University of the Philippines. He has shown in paintings and performance art festivals and exhibits across Asia, including two major art events in Taiwan and Japan, and has been distinguished in several abstract art competitions. This is his fourth solo show to date.
YONINA COLLEEN CHAN
Assistant Editor
i section, Manila Bulletin
"Incidents"
Exploring the textures, patterns, movements, and shades of sound, abstract artist Marlon Magbanua creates an emotive visual language that at once decodes and then re-imagines the vast, dynamic range of everyday auditory experiences in the space of a single canvas. "Incidents," his fourth solo show to date, captures the most vivid yet mundane aural scenes: from the familiar, if comforting white noise of the city, underscoring the urban dweller’s existential conundrums, to the beerhouse tunes of the blind street musician, cackled through the shattered, booming bass of an old electric guitar, to the immutable silences of contemporary existence, framed, ironically enough, by the constant prattle of daily life.
Having come from a musical background, much of Magbanua’s work has involved an interplay of aural and visual constructs. The past few years, however, have seen an increased fascination with translating sound into color and form—literally, assigning both numerical and visual equivalents to the elements of sound. Given the functional quantification of visual elements (most familiar in digital imaging software), sound, Magbanua exerts, may very well find direct translation in images, given the right set of values and equations.
In his paintings, lines are a kind of time signature, with thinner lines indicating a faster pace and thicker lines a slower beat. Variations in hues define the pitch, with dark shades indicating lower notes and lighter shades higher ones, while textures indicate sound effects, such as the use of flangers or distortion pedals.
Color, on the other hand, functions more subjectively, conforming inevitably to cultural and psychological associations. For example, reds typically imply intensity or rage, blues melancholy, and blacks the metaphorical darkness of the soul. Magbanua’s only fixed value assignments are yellow representing the middle note, ‘sol,’ and grey representing the impossibility of absolute silence.
"Incidents" most notably departs from Magbanua’s previous work in its experimentations with greater color combinations and frenzied forms. While the artist takes off from his previous aesthetics—specifically, balancing smaller, seemingly standalone abstract paintings within a larger, contrasting abstract piece—his new works moves away from his previously quieter, more controlled and consequently minimal sensibility and towards more intense and eruptive compositions informed by the chaos and variability of urban environmental sounds.
"Basket Case," for example, represents the auditory experience of being in a marketplace, with agitated lines, scribbled in graphite and pencil, outlining and at times interrupting shapes and forms, and mix of both brighter, typically "happy" colors bordered by a looming darkness suggesting the organized pandemonium of the scene. In a suggestion of imagery, on the other hand, rows of box-like shapes, framed by thick, broken orange and white lines, seem to imply a bird’s eye view of lined-up stalls, while an overlapping image of a basket, its handle arching over the painting, would perhaps further enforce the visual connections.
"Thank You for Calling" reflects the now common experience of a call center agent working the graveyard shift: a play of blacks and greys recreate the immense loneliness and despondency of the job, implying silence in an envelopment of lower registers and dim, "neutral" noises. One central piece of the collection, "Uttering Blind Words," takes off from the artist’s experience of stopping to listen to a blind musician playing somewhat obliviously in the heart of Ortigas, where he was obviously ignored by the busy, impatient, indifferent crowd around him. The faint color gradations over the main shade of yellow, which create a richer and deeper totality, impress more of a contemplative rather than blithely happy tone to the image, and the compact, minimal arrangement of forms and contained bursts of color seem to suggest the struggle to find release—music, perhaps, desperately fighting to not be drowned out in the city’s blare.
Marlon Magbanua is a graduate of Fine Arts at the Technological University of the Philippines. He has shown in paintings and performance art festivals and exhibits across Asia, including two major art events in Taiwan and Japan, and has been distinguished in several abstract art competitions. This is his fourth solo show to date.
YONINA COLLEEN CHAN
Assistant Editor
i section, Manila Bulletin
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