The whispering winds of Wilwayco
Abstract painter Edwin Wilwayco is clear on one thing: “I’m more daring, my style has changed—but my soul is still there.”
“Edwin Wilwayco NOW,” his current exhibit at the Galerie Joaquin Rockwell, captures a master challenging the very language he helped define in Philippine abstraction. His works paint an artist unafraid to continue exploring and reimagining.
“My exhibit is a mini retrospective of, you may call them, never-before-seen works from four series I mounted from 2023 to the present: Jeepney Unicus, Bellavia, Rhapsody In Abstraction and Soundscapes In Shape. Of course, my love for music inspired them all,” says Wilwayco, whose house boasts not only of paintings in every nook, cranny and corner, but also a trove of time-honored CDs (and hidden in a secret corner room, his collection of shoes!).
“Rhythmic inspiration lies at the core of these creations on exhibit. The movement of the strokes is palpable, like in a composition. I find in each piece smooth, intersecting curves, undulating, sinewy lines that impart complexity. The strokes are melodious, but controlled,” says Wilwayco, who doesn’t consign his paintings.
The reason he has never-before-seen works is because he doesn’t exhibit what he doesn’t perceive—as yet—to be a perfect visual melody.
“I have kept these paintings in my studio, refining, editing,” Wilwayco, who shuttles between Providence, Rhode Island and Manila, points out.
Refreshed and reinvigorated and eager to share his never-before-seen pieces from four different series from 2023 to 2025, Wilwayco continues to push the limits of mastery and visual resonance with each canvas as he continues to create a world of motion and rhythm. From his last exhibit at Galerie Joaquin Podium in December 2023, Octo Gravitas 2, Wilwayco’s unmistakable signature is still ever apparent in this new collection through a symphony of bold, layered colors and masterful strokes. Yet, each piece showcases a renewed vitality, even sharper contrast.
His Rhapsody in Abstraction series presents a euphoric interplay of cool hues, softened and punctuated by slashes of white and sparks of lighter colors. Bellavia, on the other hand, features explosive compositions rendered in combinations of red, white, gray and black. In contrast to his other abstractions, Bellavia surges with controlled strength and dynamism. Each canvas is inscribed with movement and emotional tension.
The third series, Soundscapes in Shape, is music—rhythm and movement—in physical form. Lastly, Wilwayco revisits his Jeepney series (1989 and 2018) via Jeepney Unicus. Here, he not only reminisces about scenes of jeepneys in motion and street scenes through flashbacks of memory but also experiments with velocity abstracted into colors and lines.
In these series, Wilwayco looks back on not only where he has been, but more importantly, where he is now.
Born in Guimba, Nueva Ecija, he has earned his way into local and international success, elevating the respect of many artists and art-savants then and now. And to think that in 1979, a dejected Wilwayco, then an art director in an advertising agency, wanted to quit painting. Only one of his paintings from his Flag series exhibit was sold. He was newly married and broke. But he was admonished by painter, art critic and historian Dr. Rod Paras Perez over coffee at Dulcinea—yes, he remembers!—to use the lull to apply for scholarships, which he got.
Another three years later, six paintings from the Flag series were bought by no less than the Central Bank of the Philippines!
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I recently visited Wilwayco’s studio—the entrance of which is a huge red door, for “statement,” he explains—and beheld a commissioned triptych he is working on.
I see in the soon-to-be-finished triptych more vibrant hues and splashes of color—a very danceable melody if likened to a musical composition.
Each painting in the triptych measures 7.5 by 6.5 ft, or 7.5 by 19.5 ft. when combined. Wilwayco has to ascend a ladder to compose this artwork.
“This triptych is called Whispering Winds,” he reveals.
I point out that the strokes are so bold and vibrant, they don’t look like whispers.
“That’s the irony,” he laughs. Loud strokes can be a whisper if you choose them to be, he elaborates. “I imagine this to be a forest in the Amazon, where even gentle winds bring vivid colors.”
“I don’t want to evoke the habagat, so I chose the winds to be a whisper,” he continues, referencing the habagat season (June to October) in the Philippines, which brings heavy rainfall. Symbolically, habagat also means the more turbulent season compared to the whispering winds of the amihan season, which is calmer.
“I don’t want my art to be predictable, or polished,” says Wilwayco, who was a scholar of the British Council in 1982, training under the curriculum of West Surrey College of Art and Design. In that same year, Wilwayco was also granted by the Italian government another scholarship for painting.
Looking at his triptych, I ask what he sees.
“I like colors. I like to think my art now is more exuberant,” says Wilwayco. *
Exuberant whispers, I would say.
“Edwin Wilwayco NOW” runs at Galerie Joaquin Rockwell until July 18 with an Artist Reception on July 17 at 5 pm. Galerie Joaquin Rockwell is located at the R3 Level of Power Plant Mall, Rockwell Center, Makati.
