Earth in acrylic and gold: Raul Isidro’s luminous abstractions

At 83, master abstractionist Raul Isidro continues to prove that nature is less a static landscape to be copied than a living experience to be continually reconstructed through paint. On view at Art Lounge Manila at The Podium until October 13, “Mother Earth” gathers six decades of visual memory into a striking meditation on color, atmosphere, and form.

Isidro’s enduring fascination with organic natural forms, especially the crystalline geometry of minerals, shifting skies, and coastal horizons, finds its ultimate expression in his mastery of medium plasticity. Throughout his distinguished career as an artist, educator, and former president of the Art Association of the Philippines, Isidro has treated oil and acrylic not as inert pigments, but as pliable, tactile elements. In his hands, the physical medium yields to layered textures, luminous metallic foil collage, and energetic impasto strokes that mirror the very geological and atmospheric forces of the earth.

This fusion of material plasticity and abstract synthesis is vividly alive in the works on display. In “Late Afternoon”, layered geometric blocks of deep cobalt, teal, and glowing crimson rest inside a circular canvas, where sharp, delicate white linear accents capture the fading, warm light of dusk. ‘Golden Sails” transforms shimmering metallic gold triangular shapes across a textured, deep blue backdrop, evoking maritime movement through rich crimson accents and precise linear details. 

Meanwhile, “Blue Florals” offers a dynamic, expressive botanical composition, featuring textured cerulean petals with fiery orange centers bursting against a saturated red canvas with subtle splatters and gold accents.

In pieces like “Sun Burst II” and “Noon Time II”, Isidro’s palette radiates with the heightened chromatic warmth of his formative memories of the Philippine countryside. Shimmering golden foils, vivid lapis blues, turquoises, and radiant peach sweeps reveal how the physical landscape becomes inseparable from the remembered landscape. The earth in Isidro’s art is both physical and mineral; it is a subterranean vault of rich pigments and sharp, crystalline forms. It is also atmospheric, capturing the fleeting play of sunlight across sky and sea.

“Mother Earth” is ultimately both a return and a continuation. It honors an artist who helped shape modern Philippine art while demonstrating a relentless daily practice that transforms lived time into radiant, enduring form.