(The Three Musicians) / 1988 / Acrylic / 120 x 180 cm / Artist: Onib Olmedo / Private collection

This work by Olmedo is a high point of his expressionist style, although it is subtle in feeling rather than directly emotional.

The entire work conveys the nocturnal atmosphere of a nightclub in its artificial lighting, focusing on the faces of the three musicians huddled together off-center with shifting light-and-shadow in the background. The faces of the musicians are those of night owls—bloodless yellow in hue, eyes open and staring absently with accustomed sleeplessness, their skin dry and paper-thin on their bony skulls. Massed together, they express a close, interactive concentration in their music, while their off-center position lends the scene an offbeat quality. Although they are in formal attire, the formality is subtly mocked by the wrinkled cuffs of their sleeves that tell of hours of work to earn a living and of the sleazy undertones of their milieu. The mood slips into a twilight zone between conscious and subconscious as the checkered floor (the black-and-white pattern allusive of notes in rhythm) tilts and slides unevenly to the right and the wooden frames of the hall and their reflections create an irregular contrapuntal design. In the haze of merging music and drink, the figures melt transparently into one another, the checkered floor with the table and the piano with reeling fluidity. The empty chair and table at the right convey a sense of solitariness and the lonely silence that follows conviviality.