Celebrating more than 40 years of in the art scene Carlo Magno hopes to present the other half that defines his artistic practice at ArtFair Philippines and its audiences, that of realist figuration for which he has gained critical recognition as well as popular support from his collectors.

Early in his career, in 1980 to be precise, Carlo Magno won first prize at the YMCA Painting Competition for his work called “Bayanihan.” The year after, he won the Grand Prize in the Hispanidad Art Contest sponsored by the Spanish Embassy and held his first solo exhibit at the Greenhills Art Center. The fusion of Hispano-Filipino culture has marked the realist figuration of Carlo Magno. Women in the ornate and graceful Filipiniana, situated in church interiors, Hispano-Filipino homes with gardens, and antique furnishings often appeared in his works, harking to a moral order where things have a proper place and right and wrong are easier to distinguish. Precision and a great sense of composition always defined his realistic figuration, and his palette contrasts the pale, translucent and iridescent tones of his model’s skin against bright and bold Spanish red, turquoise, and gold. In his early works, the overriding character of Magno’s pieces is that of precision. “Nary a chair, table, desk, or lamp is out of place and everything is considered, logical, and orderly,” notes Art critic Cid Reyes.

This most recent exhibition will allow the audiences to see the most recent iteration of Carlo Magno’s art, one that is not just figurative, but also consistent with the impeccable composition his all his works are. noted for, with clear formal relationships between shapes, volumes, colors, contrasts, and light.