Wilfredo Alicdan

In the 90’s WILFREDO ALICDAN has come up with his distinct figurative style in representing the humanity as folk in a context that is more rural than urban. His narratives that begin with courting and proceed to raising a family and living the simple life of the folk are told from the male point of view, but one which is childlike and tender and one which is yet untouched by the new, still predominantly urban, gender issues. In his subject of the folk, he has developed a fitting style: simple figures with rounded limbs, disciplined by straight lines, parallel or forming right angles. The figures, in the basic solid hues, are clearly defined in terms of colors not gaudy, however, but tempered, with light and consistent modeling to bring out volume and mass, at the same time that there is an interaction between the colors of figures and those of the plain background.
Living in the rapidly industrializing province of Cavite, which has lost some of its rural character to smoke-belching factories and ever-expanding housing complexes, Alicdan’s art is not immune to these changes. From his first exhibition where his style of figuration was evocative of a social context that was distinctly rural, he has since added to his visual r...