Born 1948 in the Philippines, Augusto Albor graduated in Fine Arts, Major in Painting from the University of the East School of Music and Fine Arts (1972). Since 1974 Albor has had over 27 solo exhibitions in New York, Vienna, Berlin, Paris, Manila and throughout the Philippines. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions in the Philippines, Japan, USA, Hong, Germany, Austria and Spain.

“Much has been said about the difficulty of having non-representational art as a site for rigorous discourse. Likewise, much has been said about how Gus Albor's works tends to solve or heighten this difficulty, or how his body of works completely turns this issue towards other forms of bonds in visual judgment. Gus Albor made his breakthrough in a culture of horror vacui. Negative space, white noise or any impression of a void are naturally frightful.  The compulsion to fill up every bit of space with detail comes naturally. Along with the fear of not being able to witness a variety of visual elements is the fear of not being able to deconstruct them the same way we look at the signifier and its definite signified. At a time when painters are inclined towards realism, figurative and highly representational subject matter, it is a bafflement that an abstract artist like Albor would effect a breathtaking aesthetic impact with his works.

The vertically elongated work on which a keyboard cover pad obtrusively nestles in aptly portrays the premise of Albor's works. "Tribute to Jose Garcia Villa" conjures what Villa is best known for - his comma poems. Like the poet, Albor nurses suspension. The non-figurative works are commas themselves - summoning a postponement in time, marking separation and filter of thought. As poetry, Albor's paintings and sculptures are evocative - operating within a site beyond deductive structures. As far as most abstractions go, their creators operate within the intuitive level. And perhaps the sincerity that Albor's works inevitably blooms is because of his natural meditative disposition. Introverted Albor is attuned to the purity of matter, the expanse of it as well as the subtle faces that make it up. The aesthetic bond is an emotional bond just so we are left hanging in time as we confront Albor's visual commas that promises an honest second, third, nth look.

Albor’s body of works resonates easily with people, though, despite its ambiguous visual language. A primal bond is inherent in each piece – a bond renewed through a beckoning of the consciousness to acknowledge its origins. He remakes the site where the natural and the man-made clash and mingle. The installation piece, “Rivals”, for instance, displays a representative for each quality: a bamboo for the non-Promethean (technological) aspect and a scarred metal rod for the Promethean banner.  Aside from that, Albor has recently introduced kinetic energy. In “Power”, the careful distinction is made not only through the effortless lines of a recapitulating nature and the ingenious use of electric fan parts. There is also a distinction of power between these two conditions. Albor unsparingly recounts the idea of nature as a perpetual motion machine with his smooth, hardly discernible strokes. Alongside that, he presents the determinate lifespan of man-made objects, and their limited blimp on the radar of the perpetual power of nature. Adept with the interaction of these two, Albor recalls for us a rather universal knowledge which is oftentimes lodged too deeply in our frantic minds.

"Expanse", on the other hand, speaks of Albor's recurring fascination with space or the so-called void. Adept with framing eternity, he reproduces endless horizons and bottomless skies. There is immeasurable fear in space, but Albor coos and soothes this anxiety. The lines and strokes that emerge from eternity allow us to perceive that there are rails to hang on to in their seemingly ungraspable void. The beauty of Albor's works is that it is non-representational not because they depict nothing, but actually represent everything. The high-consciousness of the artist stands out as he effortlessly reduces everything into the simplest, barest, and most transcendental form. Albor gets a kick from completing these spiritually elevated frames. Unconsciously, and naturally, he evokes the everything of existence that is contained in the void. His canvases are luminous, his strokes elegant and pithy. The aesthetic bond formed by his works is a spiritual bond just as we are summoned to swim in the visual sea of existence.

Gus Albor, then, is not consciously making non-figurative art. The problem, then, is not the style and medium of his works but how they are perceived. First and foremost, they are a poetry of harmony – an effortless melody that embraces dualities like that of nature and technology. More than paintings, they are invitations to grapple with the fear of space and to discover that in this space there is no such thing as nothing. The void that we know is not empty but simply full. Every rust, scar, whisper, bloom and flow are both captured and let go in Albor’s works. The meaning, therefore, is not extracted from his canvases and installations. Rather, they extract the meaning from us.”  - article by Ms. Siddharta Perez.

Multi-faceted artist Gus Albor opens his latest exhibit “Radar and Innerview” at the Alliance Francaise de Manille on December 2, 2008, at Alliance Française de Manille’s Total Gallery that will run until January 22, 2009.