Another piece in diptych format, “Yinyang”
is executed in almost similar fashion, with two
largely contrasting pictorial fields, one full with
bright splashes, the other almost starkly bare in
an off-white configuration. Here, in the left image-rich
panel, Veneracion has incorporated figurative drawings
of flowers and leaves as a counterpoint to the nearly
empty space on the right panel, a homage to the
Chinese epigram symbolizing nature’s contrasting
polarities.
The pervasive influence of music is also present
in a number of Veneracion’s pieces, not those
of the present-day all-boy or all-girl pretty crooners,
but that of a much earlier era, where he, at one
point, was himself enamored with the music of the
Beatles, James Taylor and Roy Orbison. In “Only
the Lonely,” a ditty made famous by Orbison,
with its still enchanting lyrics and melody intact,
Veneracion has incorporated a string of copper wire
onto his canvas, presumably to harp on the impact
of his generation’s music now sadly lost in
this age of the Videoke and MTV.
The ecological landscape is not about to escape
the artist’s endless ruminations. In “Ode
to the Rainforest,” he traces the route back
to the primeval wellspring of all creation. With
the help of signs and symbols both suggestive of
a road map, the artist dreams of embarking on a
personal journey if only to retrieve and relive
what has been irretrievably lost today.
With a sensibility as irresistible as this ardent
disciple of abstract expressionism, the art of Roy
Veneracion continues to boggle, disturb and haunt,
even as it speaks to us of the beauty and ugliness,
the Jungian face of man, the trials and triumphs
of the human soul.
