1971 / Bronze / 35.56 x 29.21 cm / Artist: Solomon Saprid / Private collection

Saprid made his mark in sculpture with his series on the tikbalang, the half-human and half-horse of Philippine mythology. The artist, however, does not endow the tikbalang with a fearsome quality; instead it has become a playful, witty, somewhat comic creature. Saprid exaggerates its long equine head, its maned neck, and its gangly limbs.

In this work, the tikbalang is a flower child of the late 1960s playing the guitar, a peace pendant hanging from its neck. Anticlassical, Saprid creates figures with a dynamic quality that arises from his particular handling of the medium. His technique of welding strips of metal with a blowtorch produces a jagged effect along the seams where the edges join together. Saprid transforms this unevenness to advantage as the sections of rugged metal capture the fight in a restless way, suggesting movement. Likewise a vital part of Saprid’s figurative style is the interplay of figure and space; for space not only surrounds the figure but weaves in and out of it through the spatial intervals, nets, and apertures. The relative thinness of the bronze fragments allows for the interaction, creating a continuous spatial flow between and among the various elements of the figure. Thus even with metal, the artist is able to achieve an airy quality, which, in the case of the tikbalang, is eminently suitable to the mythological subject.