By: Jov Ortua Almero and Corin B. Arenas

In life, as in art, duality is always an inherent truth. This bipolarity of the human condition is one quintessential aspect of being and living: love and indifference, compassion and intolerance, hope and cynicism. But amidst these opposing natures, between noise and silence, chaos and order, consciousness and apathy, one can always find, conjure, or even invent a state of solitude, no matter how fleeting, and at times no matter how precarious.

Chasing Alone- a two man visual exhibit by Oliver Abe Ramos and Roman James Soleño attempts to capture solitary yearning in a fast-paced society where interference perpetually defocuses our perceptions. The title is a dichotomy in itself. Chasing Alone can be understood as “seeking solitude” and/or a “solitary quest”.
Sadness, alienation, wistfulness, overt and subtle serenity, is the unifying affective theme apparent in their compositions. Sadness in dreaming. Alienation in wakefulness. And the beguiling facets of serenity.

Chasing Alone as Choice
Oliver Abe Ramos has a degree in Advertising Major in Fine Arts. From a man’s perspective that has been endowed with enduring kin, his “Aloneness” is anchored on his preference to isolate his subjects from his own realities. Detachment from his subjects is a prerequisite to his creative process. When the human person is isolated, his senses are less clouded and sensibilities are not constrained. Hence, it allows consummation of experiences that eventually transcend into art defamiliarized.

Using red infused with dark hues, he depicts life in a dreamlike consciousness. His subjects possess enlivened qualities but with inert presence. The artist’s awareness of space is ubiquitous in his craft. Subjects blending seamlessly with space, he further magnifies somber moods and a forlorn atmosphere.

Chasing Alone as Struggle
Roman James Soleño started dabbling with the visual arts at an early age. Eventually, he broadened his creative vision and has arrived to a conceptual framework in approaching his medium.

At seventeen, with the offset of post-adolescent angst and idealistic responsiveness, his “Aloneness” is grounded on purposeful struggle. The motivation behind his art is to arouse a somehow radical reaction against the perceived realities he criticizes, or at least relate with his views. From abstractions like existence to illusions, and concretes like media to society, he struggles to communicate his insight of legitimacy that is oftentimes shunned.
With four paintings and one installation that tackles death, dreams/nightmares, abandonment, desolation, and disillusionment, he utilizes spatters and drips of vivid colors as a mode of deconstructing his vision of physical and spiritual destruction.

Aloneness
It’s hard to seek solitude, and it’s equally difficult when one ventures into a solitary quest.

However, in the awareness of our human need for solitude, we eventually find some form of tranquility and liberation from the inadequacies of the world outside. This is where our imagination and dreams are unbound, and through this visual display, it challenges us to reassess our versions of reality in relation to the ethereal aspects of the human condition.

The exhibit “Chasing Alone” was launched August 6, 2011 and will run through August 26, 2011at Sigwada Gallery located in 1921 Oroquieta St., Sta Cruz, Manila fronting Catholic Trade. For inquiries, please call  0917-8075659, 743-5873, or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .