The Phoenix Spirit of Ross Capili rises from his “Veiled Earth”
By Cid Reyes

“I Rise in Flame, Cried the Phoenix” is the title of a one-act play by the celebrated American playwright Tennessee Williams. It is an imaginary depiction of the last moments of the British novelist D. H. Lawrence, who was himself a Sunday painter. Cried the literary phoenix: “I had to have color. I painted the way that I wrote.”

The stunning header sweeps like wildfire through the mind upon awareness of Ross Capili’s current solo exhibition at Galerie Anna, titled “Veiled Earth.” The metaphor is not gratuitous cliché for it nails the very spiritual anguish and psychic depression of the spirit that assaulted the artist. Capili adverts to the many miseries of the previous year: the terrifying Covid-19 pandemic, nature’s wrath manifested by the Taal Volcano explosion, the succession of typhoons, the year-long quarantine and lockdown, the social isolation, and, more painfully, the demise of friends and loved ones.

In particular, Capili was devastated by the fire that gutted the family’s ancestral house in Tondo, Manila at a time of what was supposed to be a season of celebration: December 23,2020.

In this lamentable fire, Capili lost several relatives but, by the mercy of God, the lives of his beloved 86-year old mother and his brother’s family were spared.

From that tragedy, Ross Capili’s spirit rose from the ashes of his firm resolve and strength of will. As in everything in his life, Art has always been the saving grace, the redemption, the regeneration of his spiritual life. Capili’ artistic resurgence is the show “Veiled Earth”, distinguished by the deeply symbolic metallic sphere that accentuates his latest abstractions.

The circular shape is representative of the sun, the moon, the planet earth which is in dire need of deliverance from the evil virus that continues to threaten the survival of all humanity. Capili’s works may be suffused with the emotional suffering of the artist but they are tinctured by a positive outlook, an optimistic character, a hopeful response coming to the fore. To be sure, the gestural marks that are the foundational background of these works seem inarguably flame-like, so visibly blazing in such as works as Magenta Afternoon, Tranquil Horizon, and Red Moon Rising.

As an artist, Ross Capili’s sensibility has always veered towards gestural abstraction, accustomed as he is to the movement of his hand wielding the brush. But concurrent with this act of automatism, where he often hits his stride, one senses in the consequent upheaval of pigment on the canvas surface Capili’s disciplined sense of design and composition, where he asserts an order and harmony in direct confrontation with the immediacy and the potential disorder of his energetic brushstrokes.

By turns tantalizing and traumatic, the show includes and displays – like a cicatriz, a healed scar of a previous wound – a 3ft x 3 ft painting early painting by Capili, which was rescued from the fire. Burned to a blackened crisp, the painting, as it were, rose in flame to assert its triumphant existence. So, too, in full display is Ross Capili’s unvanquished phoenix spirit.