‘Chrysalis’ by Justin Nuyda: Reflecting on the living master’s vivid & unwavering strokes

‘Chrysalis’ by Justin Nuyda: Reflecting on the living master’s vivid & unwavering strokes
JUSTIN NUYDA, ‘Search Mindscape: Leviathan’, 2021, Oil on canvas

A master of the modern and a cerebral pillar of Philippine art, Justin Nuyda will be mounting an introspective solo exhibition titled Chrysalis at Salcedo Private View that opens this Saturday, 25 September and runs through 16 October 2021 at NEX Tower, 6786 Ayala Avenue, Makati City.

The artist continues to redefine his own legacy by presenting a twelve-piece collection of acrylic on canvas works that picture both the familiar and the obscure, as if projections from a dream that has now passed but continue to linger in one’s mind’s eye. Nuyda’s abstractions are expressions of his masterful technical prowess on a journey into the metaphysical – a visual analysis of the human mind at work, reflecting on the sublime. Nuyda belongs to the first batch of CCP Thirteen Artists Awardees, receiving the accolade in 1972. He is also an original member of the Saturday Group of Artists, which counts among its ranks National Artists Jose Joya, BenCab, and Hernando R. Ocampo; modern masters such as Onib Olmedo, Galo Ocampo, Eduardo Castrillo, and Araceli Dans; and art critics such as Dr. Rod Paras-Perez, and Alfredo Roces. A number of his masterpieces now belong to major Philippine museums and important private art collections all over the world.

‘Chrysalis’ by Justin Nuyda: Reflecting on the living master’s vivid & unwavering strokes
JUSTIN NUYDA, ‘Search Mindscape: A Visit to Amlan’, 2021, Oil on canvas

The surreal and effervescent colors that are so iconically Nuyda are inspired by the fact that he is also a long-time and world-renowned lepidopterist specializing in Philippine butterflies. His fascination with the winged creature began at a young age. In fact, he began going on butterfly-hunting trips around the Philippines at the tender age of 7. Later in his career, he went on to pioneer butterfly studies in the country. From this lifelong passion, nurtured from his youth, the title of the show emerged — Chrysalis.

Chrysalis does not only present Nuyda’s iconic abstracted terrains – his ‘search mindscapes’- but it also highlights, like the pupa transforming in its cocoon, the artist’s own development of his technique and approach through the years. These paintings show a different approach: merging the linear and geometric style from the 60’s, when his career first began, and incorporating this into his more refined techniques from recent years. This is the living master at his most sincere — his confident strokes after decades of perfecting his practice coming through in each of his vibrant and bold opuses.

‘Chrysalis’ by Justin Nuyda: Reflecting on the living master’s vivid & unwavering strokes
JUSTIN NUYDA, ‘Search Mindscape: Nostalgia’, 2021, Oil on canvas

The collection begins with Nostalgia – its vibrant red being the first thing that catches the viewer’s eye, the title itself is an apt beginning for this introspective show. This is the first time that a red so vibrant has been the center point of any of his paintings. It makes use of Nuyda’s frame within a frame technique that he popularized in the 1970’s along with his contemporaries and friends, such as Lee Aguinaldo. Reverie is Nuyda’s first and only painting that makes use of a predominantly yellow palette. Terrain-like prisms fan out in layers – floating in dream-like fashion as bursts of yellow, mixing together his more mute and pastel yellows with a vibrant yellow and ochre that is more prevalent in his newer works. One of the most distinct pieces in the collection, A Visit to Amlan, utilizes a technique that the master has not used in any of his works in recent years. Here. the drips slide upwards across the canvas, an abstracted entity with a semblance of trees growing, concealing and revealing the view of the glistening body of water in the background.

Chrysalis by Justin Nuyda is co-presented by Salcedo Private View’s Exclusive Banking Partner HSBC Premier. For inquiries, email info@salcedoauctions.com or phone +632 8 8230956 | +63 9171075581. Follow @salcedoauctions on Instagram and Facebook for more updates.

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