The Reinvention of Carlo Magno

For at least thrice in his life, the versatile but often unpredictable modern and contemporary painter Carlo Magno (born January 19, 1960) has had a momentous change of heart.

Written by  Benjamin “Benjie” Layug
January 2023

Carlo Magno in his studio. Photography by Juvel Lorenzo

First, after taking up Architecture for a year at the Mapua Institute of Technology, he moved to the Philippine Women’s University (PWU) in 1976 to take up Fine Arts, majoring in Advertising. Here, he came under the mentorship of its then-director and dean Raul Isidro, one of today’s supreme abstract masters. Then influenced by PWU alumni Prudencio Lamarroza and Rafael Cusi, an art auction in 1980 inspired him to take up painting. 

Very early in his life, he was already winning awards. In 1980, the year he shifted to painting, he won first prize in a YMCA-sponsored painting competition for a work titled “Bayanihan.” For his contributions to the Likarla Artist Group, PWU also conferred on him the Outstanding Leadership Award. The following year, at the Hispanidad Art Contest sponsored by the Spanish Embassy, he won the Grand Prize, and at the Greenhills Art Center, he held his first solo exhibit. 

“Formal Parallels,” 2022, 6 x 72 inches, Mixed Media

Magno started out as a Realist, making a name in painting in a Hyperrealist manner, depicting Filipiniana artifacts such as antique furniture, cultural artifacts, Romantic landscapes, and women figures. Emblematic of his generation’s nostalgic sensibility for the past, he also captured the spirit and ambience of well-appointed old houses, as well as ancient churches, with their spacious interiors and sprawling gardens. Until the 1990s, this was the style he immersed himself in, holding two solo shows at the Ayala Museum Gallery (1990) and the Madrigal Art Center (1992). 

At the start of the 21st century, Magno shifted to semi-abstraction (semi-figures, abstract landscapes). Nearly 20 years ago, in a 2003 exhibit at Galerie Joaquin in Rockwell, Makati titled Transformation – which was heavily influenced by the gestural quality of East Asian calligraphy – Magno made the difficult yet epochal transition from figuration to full abstraction—defined by Jackson Pollock as “energy and motion made visible—memories arrested in space.” 

In the process of his reinvention as a painter, Magno discovered that in abstract art, there was a freedom in expression and, in it, he has acquired a new way of seeing thought, emotion, and the handling of material in art-making. He is best known for his mixed media abstracts that employ the fullest color, line and movement—all for signification and emotional, philosophical resonance. 

“Secrets,” 2022, 20 x 20 inches, Mixed Media

His works, predominantly in red, tempered with shades of grey, metallic copper and bronze, and daubs of black, are featured in books such as Philippine Art Now and Twentieth Century Filipino Artists. 

Abstraction has also influenced Magno’s sculpture. Using a diverse set of metal casting techniques, he has produced a series of public art sculptures of trophy-sized pieces in stainless steel that demonstrate his sense of space and volume in relation to material. With predominantly geometric forms, they exude a strong eloquent statement and are distinctive for their utter simplicity, reflecting the artist’s evolving aesthetics. 

Exploring a world of endless possibilities, Magno is continuously evolving and doesn’t want to be boxed in. 

He was strongly influenced by bold textures of gestural abstractionism, espoused by Spanish and Japanese artists, especially Kikuo Saito who, together with Magno, were influenced in a major way by the New York School of Abstract Expressionism with their color-field paintings. To reflect Asian sensibilities, he enhanced, across the canvas, solid colors with fine lines and inscriptions. With the use of earth colors, Magno evoked the aura of landscapes and also made bold textures in the style of gestural abstraction. 

Magno’s abstraction engages the viewer, drawing him or her to introspection. In the intriguing canvas, the viewer can find meaning that can be quite different from the artist’s assays at meaning when he was painting it—part of the aleatory (something characterized by chance or indeterminacy) ambience of abstraction. Chance and contingency conspire to both unite and divide artist and viewer. Dialectic, a form of communion resulting from this encounter, is what true art strives for. 

Magno’s latest series of mixed media sculptures.

Magno’s use of colors relates to his Minimalist approach that adheres to the more elemental qualities, and his firm foundation in Chinese classical studies and philosophy betrays his obsession with the use of the circle motif—a ubiquitous presence in many of his works. His command of vast color and form provides us with a sense of stability and serenity. 

Magno’s initial architectural training continues to backstop his art. Showing distinctive confidence in the handling and crafting of intricacies of mixed media (particularly applying acrylic paint pre-mixed with sand particles to make room for subdued textural effects), the painter creates thin horizontal gridlines that take up a major part of the superimposed composition, creating an animated interplay between the spaces, imaginary and reality that crosses boundaries and barriers. 

Hailed by critics as a “Master of Light,” Magno mounts large-scale abstract pieces in luminous red hues, with gestural brushstrokes on surfaces that allude to the controlled accident. He also incorporates, in strong textures, intense light sources and elements of Oriental abstractionism such as calligraphy and the inherent materiality of medium. 

Magno works on a new series of sculptures. Photography by Juvel Lorenzo

Now a senior artist, he seems to employ his abstraction as vehicle for spiritual enrichment and contemplative reckoning. Today, Magno has had a rich career of more than 20 well-received international and local solo shows. 

Formal Parallels, Magno’s latest exhibition, which ran from October 26 to November 8 at Art Lounge Manila in Molito, Alabang was curated by his daughter Cindel Tiausas. Here, he demonstrated his mastery of his medium, manipulating depth, texture and balance to capture moments and memories. Accentuated by a perfect palette and minute tonal shifts, his new works – more simplified in composition but with a more intense feel – convey the transitory and often ephemeral nature of his subjects. A series of three shows, after opening in Molito, two more exhibitions will be held at Manila’Bang and at Art Lounge Manila Podium in December. Aside from paintings, the last two will also feature sculptures and relief-like works in resin that were 3D printed.