In the year 2008, at the Beijing Olympics, the judges in the International Olympic Committee Sport and Art Contest (Sculpture Category) sifted and waded through hundreds of entries from every part of the globe. When at last a decision had to be made, the deserving entry came from a country not too far away…the Philippines!
The name of the Filipino artist? Jose “Joe” Datuin, a Fine Arts graduate from the University of Santo Tomas.
From the classic five-ring symbol of the Olympics has sprung the latest of Datuin’s inspiration: its evolution into the Infinity Symbol. Also called the leminscate, it assumes the figure 8—an intertwined twin rings that suggest boundlessness, endlessness, limitlessness. The very qualities which Datuin ascribes to the artistic and creative imagination.
Galerie Roberto presented Datuin’s “Infinity +” at the Solaire Resort and Casino in the whole month of February. The one-month show was also a recognition that over 2,300 years ago, a Greek mathematician named Archimedes first conceived and wrote about the concept of infinity, while in 1655, English mathematician John Wallis designed the leminscate.
Into the second decade of the 21st century, Datuin merges the dynamic energies of the Olympian Spirit with the art of contemporary times. Graven against a field of brilliant pop colors and clean minimalist lines, the Infinity Symbol, in the hands of Datuin, delivers the imperative of an artist’s boundless and endless exploration of art.
“Infinity +” also featured the artist’s Fusion technique, wherein the iconic images of immortal artists such as Matisse, Miro, and Mondrian—whose styles are strikingly recognizable at first glance—are all the more astonishing for their familiarity, when, in their verisimilitude execution by Datuin—as a brush with history!—they are nestled comfortably within the Infinity Symbol.
Gleam. Shine. Dazzle. Radiance. Sparkle. In “Infinity +”, these are the facets that struck the eye delightfully when one viewed the layered and intertwined stainless rings of Joe Datuin, who endlessly, boundlessly, spun them into limitless existence.
