Icarus is Lovesick Studio takes after Jonathan Olazo’s recent exhibition that had a series of apparently compiled paintings in various mediums: oil, acrylic, and object-assembled works. The exhibition title makes use of the myth-as-metaphor conundrum that lies at the heart of any artist’s pilgrimage: in the pursuit of profound perfection, it runs the gauntlet of burning one’s self to a mothball. In the artist’s mind, the self-imposed discourse on the idea and stylistic paragon of Modernist painting, especially hinged on 1950s Abstract Expressionism, are both a pitfall and a reward. The healthy and liberal rigodon of changing hats—be it a passé dandy or a blasé conformist that overcomes each step—makes the output dwell interestingly in the linkages of the grey areas of artistic license and consolidates its own apologia.

Summarily in the exhibition, Olazo makes use of current extensions in his practice. A series of paintings that look like splatters and dabs of gestures betray excavated paint blobs from the mixing palette applied straight unto a surface using a brush or a palette knife. It is a tabula rasa kind of layering that goes after and rekindles the traditional and romantic adaptation of the palimpsest in recent abstract painting. This is coupled with found and constructed art objects that appear to conspire in scrutinizing the abstract works.

Olazo wants to look at the chameleon-like nature of abstract painting and its many lives: dating back to its political self at the start of the last century, then as a surrogate visual for the utopian reality in the Post Second World War, which led to its self-indulgent yet monumental years. All in all, the obvious agenda is the life of modernity. Whether much is prophetically said about its baffling, self-sustaining circumstance, the said monster may still yield delightful results, playing a multifaceted role in the soul-searching that may yet still be on the upswing.