1962 / Woodcut / 50.8 x 76.2 cm / Artist: Rodolfo Paras-Perez / Ateneo Art Gallery collection

The Kiss is one of Paras-Perez’s earlier woodcuts that launched his thematic concern for the synchronism of opposition—in this particular case, the balancing of male-female principles. His artistic concern here is to put together simple, flat masses into a vigorous composition of organic forms. Using only two colors, the underprinting of intense black and overprinting of ultramarine blue result in a rich interplay of opacity and opalescence. The two heads in passionate caress make up the design fulcrum from which germinate a wealth of fruit, flower, and leaf forms.

Xylography is an ancient Asian craft founded on frugality of means and material: raw blocks of wood and simple chisels. The native Filipino is innately proficient in it. In the early 1960s, when artists of the Neo-Realist school were doing genre subjects in the medium, Paras-Perez was exploring the expressionistic and philosophical.

First exhibited at the Luz Gallery in 1962 after the artist returned from his masteral studies in the United States, The Kiss became a high mark in Philippine graphic art. The uniqueness of Paras-Perez’s artistry is found in the way he melds primordial Oriental feeling with a highly disciplined Occidental intellectuality. He later moved on to develop a multiple image approach to a single form or figure as he probed symbols and meaning in the Eastern anagram Yin-Yang. Aside from his individual style, Paras-Perez’s contribution to graphic arts is his impeccable professionalism in the practice of printmaking ethics.