Lester Amacio’s 10th solo exhibition, “How’s the weather inside you today?” at the Underground Gallery is a journey through the mindscape, an artist’s dissection of the intricate landscapes of thought, memory, and emotion.

The exhibition opened February 26 and will run until March 21, 2025.

Recognizable is the textual and visual duality of the artist, using poetry lines as titles alluding to the weather season and translated by 15 canvases of bright color fields of red, yellow, green, violet, and blue, like a color chart to describe the ever-changing mental condition of human beings, and enriched by meanings through the elements of lines and geometrical shapes. 

Throughout history, humans have drawn connections between weather patterns and the natural environment, relating its predictability, uncertainty, or impact not only to agriculture and farming, travel and transportation, and safety and disaster preparedness, but also in shaping our emotional and psychological states. As such, the enduring idioms, “I’m feeling blue” for feelings of melancholy and sadness while “in the pink” of health for good mood and excellent well-being.

Read more about the artist and his work: The Art of Lester Amacio, a Traversal into the Inner Self

Amacio’s paintings resonate with the legacy of iconic artists who have ventured deep into the fluctuations of the human mind, offering a poignant exploration of mental health through the medium of art. Much like the renowned Vincent Van Gogh, whose iconic swirling brushstrokes and vibrant colors simultaneously conjure a sense of calm and conceal a deeper, more turbulent chaos, Amacio’s work delves into the complexities of inner turmoil and emotional depth.

Another contemporary artist whose work is symbolic of her experiences with mental disorders is Yayoi Kusama. The repetitive patterns in her Infinity Nets series depicted her struggles with anxiety, isolation, and obsessive thinking—mental issues that echo to this day through ruminations or overthinking of the past or future negative events.

And then we have abstract painters Piet Mondrian and Mark Rothko, who explored these themes through large color field works that bring a sense of contemplation. Rothko’s large swathes of color in his works, like No. 61 (Rust and Blue), show thoughtful emotional responses that reflect his struggles with existential despair, while Mondrian’s distinct visual language using geometric shapes, primary colors, and minimalist compositions also reflects his inner world, emphasizing balance, harmony, and order in his search for mental stability, particularly as he faced personal loss and the upheaval of war.

Drawing upon the tradition of artists who use their canvases as windows into the psyche, Amacio’s pieces present a visual dialogue—a continuous exchange between the viewer and the subject. This ongoing conversation invites reflection on the nuances of the human condition, allowing the viewer to engage with the artwork not as a static image but as a living, evolving narrative. Through their thoughtful compositions, Amacio’s paintings serve as a meditation on mental health, offering visually gentle yet powerfully meaningful insights into the nature of our thoughts, emotions, and perceptions.

Aligning the subjects and works of painters across time with Amacio’s recent collection offers a more immersive experience, leading us to venture through shifting terrains that represent the depths of the subconscious. Each piece is a quest to understand our mental topography, vividly symbolized by lines and highlighted by a geometric core represented by the color white, ebbing into gray and fading to shades of graphite as it dissolves into a black hole, projecting an entry into the abyss of the human psyche.

The combination of lines, geometric shapes, and expansive color fields is a hallmark of Lester Amacio’s distinctive style, manifesting both aesthetic precision and symbolic meaning in his artwork. His use of color is not just visual; it is a powerful means of communication, shaping emotional responses and provoking thought.

As Amacio explains, “Color is not merely a visual phenomenon; it is a powerful communicator that can alter our mood, provoke thoughts, and evoke memories.” He further elaborates on how different colors can stir varied emotional reactions: “Warm colors like red and orange can stimulate excitement, passion, and energy, while cooler hues such as blue and green tend to create a sense of calm, serenity, and balance. By strategically using color in my art, I aim to evoke specific emotional responses.”

Amacio is particularly intrigued by the dichotomy inherent in colors and their ability to influence behavior. He observes, “I explore the dual nature of colors and how they can evoke contrasting emotions. For instance, red can signify both danger and love, stirring a complex interplay of fear and attraction. Similarly, the color blue can be both soothing and melancholic, depending on its context and shade. This duality fascinates me and drives my exploration of color as a central theme in my work.”

In his art, color becomes a vehicle for emotional complexity, displaying how colors can simultaneously convey beauty, tension, and meaning.

The use of geometric focus as a central element in each of his paintings adds an esoteric dimension to his work. Through the strategic placement of lines and quadrilaterals along an imagined x and y axis, Amacio presents a dynamic interplay of up-and-down and left-to-right alignments. These geometric arrangements symbolize not only physical movement but also deeper psychological and emotional states. The upward and downward shifts often suggest concepts of progression or regression, while the horizontal alignment conveys a sense of balance or imbalance. This careful positioning of shapes can be interpreted as a representation of positive growth or a downturn, symbolizing internal mental and emotional struggles. By incorporating these elements, Amacio transforms simple geometric forms into a visual language that speaks to the complexities of the human experience.

Much like the works of Van Gogh, Kusama, and Rothko, Lester Amacio’s paintings delve deep into the realms of psychological and emotional experience, making mental health a recurring theme in his art for over a decade.

This thematic focus first became apparent in his 2014 piece Transmigration, which explored the struggles of being an overseas Filipino cultural worker in Dubai. The work was unveiled during the Philippine Art Month, following a month-long residency at the Abu Dhabi Art Hub.

Pondering on his experience, Amacio shared, “It was so hard living in a small partition that has no window, and the least you can do is strengthen your mental health. That’s why my paintings are like this—claustrophobic.” 

Lester Amacio’s work, like his personal journey, embodies feelings of confinement, isolation, and the emotional toll of living in challenging conditions. Through his use of expansive color fields and carefully arranged geometric shapes, Amacio creates a visual language that reflects the tension and intricacy of the human psyche, turning personal struggles into a deeply meaningful artistic expression.

Sources:
– Facebook post of Lester Amacio
– The artists behind Philippine Art Month by Anna Seaman, The National News,  June 30, 2014
– Photos of art from the catalog of Lester Amacio and art exhibit from the Facebook post of Amacio and Underground Gallery.