Elmer Roslin mounts his 5th Solo Exhibition at the Blue Line Gallery, 4th Floor Rustan’s Makati,
show opens on March 14, 2009 with an artists receptionat 5pm.
We hope you can come.
Please visit http://bluelinegallery.multiply.com or visit our Facebookprofile (username : Blue Line)
The Nowhere Man by Ms. Trickie Lopa
He’s a real nowhere man
Sitting in his Nowhere Land
Making all his nowhere plans
For nobody
Elmer Roslin has always identified with the urban Pinoy Everyman. In his earlier shows, TAuMBAYAN and Lust In Paint, both at Boston Gallery, and his 2006 solo exhibit at the Big and Small Art Gallery in Megamall, we have seen a whole body of work on the average Juan: theubiquitous tambay hanging out in internet cafes, mourners gambling at a street corner wake, lovers meeting illicitly in motel rooms, the pool sharks and cue artists crowding billiard halls scattered around a congested city. Through him, we have become voyeurs, spectators of the everyday details that make up contemporary Filipino metropolitan life.
In this latest suite of acrylic and oil paintings, Roslin makes us observers of a different sort. In his 2008 solo exhibition, Inside Your Nights and Days at the Kaida Gallery, he filled his canvases with lone figures, distorted in the manner of Francis Bacon. This signaled the beginning of a stylistic shift, altering his images from densely packed scenes to that of one central subject. This shift continues with Nowhere Man, Roslin’s fifth solo show at the Blueline Gallery. He moves us from involved yet emotionally detached witnesses to introspective participants. With him we begin to ask questions: on motives, goals, impulses.
Roslin takes the show’s title from a 1965 hit by The Beatles, a song composed by John Lennon for the movie Yellow Submarine. They sing of an aimless man who goes through life haphazardly, unconcernedly.
Nowhere Man is also a title of one of Roslin’s works in this exhibit.
As with all his other canvases, he adopts a muted palette, of dull browns and grays. The piece depicts a man from waist up, his thoughts seemingly far away. From his back, like a mutant, springs another head, facing the opposite direction. The resulting grotesque figure underscores the ludicrousness of a man who “doesn’t have a point of view, knows not where he’s going to.”
Another piece, Looking For Exit brings us to another Nowhere Man: the cad who refuses to commit. Here he confronts us, locked with a woman in a suffocating embrace, situated at the center of rising water, drowning in the sea of relationship demands. We witness his mini-me running for his life, seeking an escape from romantic obligations. In Makata he becomes the philosopher with jumbled thoughts in his head, paralyzed by analysis, unable to take action. We see another variation in Some Place Safe, a broody, surly Nowhere Man consumed by a secret, perhaps of a double life still in the closet.
The Missing Piece illustrates the Nowhere Man’s dilemma best, that of a broken, damaged being taking pains to solve a puzzle. Shouldn’t he fix himself first?
The call to paint hits Elmer Roslin at random moments, following no particular schedule or set routine. Until he hears this call, he remains the vigilant bystander, a keen onlooker to the foibles and follies of the typical Pinoy on the street. He keeps his senses attuned to the daily occurrences that make life, and his art, both interesting.
Doesn’t have a point of view
Knows not where he’s going to
Isn’t he a bit like you and me?
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