Ramon Diaz truly lives larger than life
Ramon Diaz paints the way some musicians play, guided by instinct, rhythm, and feel. Spend five minutes with the artist and the connection becomes clear. He speaks in riffs, builds stories as if crescendos, and shifts from memory to memory with the same loose confidence you hear in a Boz Scaggs groove or a Curtis Mayfield bass line. His paintings move with this same energy, in brushstrokes and lines that seem slow and soulful.
In his latest show, which opened last Nov. 22, “Larger than Life” draws viewers into a world filled with forms that twist across canvas and paper, pulling viewers in closer.
Going against the grain
From the beginning, Diaz was never built for anything except art. He laughs about it now, but his dyslexia and discomfort with numbers made traditional paths difficult. “I couldn’t follow the math,” he says. But he could follow a gesture. Left-handed and intuitive, Diaz learned early on that he understood movement better than systems.
His life shifted during his years in Europe. He immersed himself as a student, taking up printing in Germany, meant to follow in the footsteps of his father’s paper business. There, he learned the intricacies of paper. Also studying in the Netherlands, he learned the discipline of the print studio.
Besides an education in Europe, Diaz also had the freedom of the road. He tells thrilling stories, like hitchhiking across the autobahn in Germany and, to his surprise, climbing into a car to find the driver with his skin burned all over. A former tank driver in World War II, the stranger became a close friend.
His stories have the stuff of legends as he remembers camping in Lapland for over a month. Sleeping under the northern lights, he moved in a manner that allowed him to evade the wolves and the bears in the forests.
His stories gathered from the world seem to play a strong role in his process. He recalls traveling with his Italian-born wife, Silvana (founder of Galleria Duemila), in Bali. They hadn’t realized they had traveled on the Balinese New Year, where all businesses are closed and the whole island practices a tradition of reflection and quiet. Wandering off with his wife, they came across women bathing in a hidden waterfall, and he started to sketch them en plen air. “Their boyfriends are going to kill you!” Silvana half-joked. Suddenly, the boyfriends came. And they all stripped to the nude and asked to be drawn as well.
Before painting, Diaz had a brief detour into the sterile life of business, a time as a cog in the machine that didn’t last long. “I didn’t enjoy being a businessman,” he says simply. He felt confined. Art, on the other hand, gave him room to move.
An energetic visual language
Inside the exhibition, these memories take shape as the experiences show up in the theatricality of gesture, lightness in posture, and the sense that each form carries a personal story.
Formidable sumo wrestlers anchor the space in looming canvases, their bodies thrusting and pressing while carrying their weight. The exaggerated drama brings to mind the way Goya drew struggle, full of gravity.
Nearby, koi glide across black and beige backgrounds, swirling and sliding with a sensuality that merges Asian tradition with soft rhythms, while evoking good fortunes in superstitious tradition.
At the entrance, a nude beneath the coils of a bed spring becomes one of the most intimate works in the show. Both concealed and revealed, the body emerges subtly, through a maze of curves.
In some corners, small horse works on paper take from Diaz’s tendency to admire Asian art historical traditions, specifically the Tang Dynasty. They also show the influence of sculptor Marino Marini in their lines, capturing a moment of movement before the horse settles.
Structure and spontaneity live side by side in these pieces. Diaz’s humor, the kind that appears in his stories, also appears in the curve of a horse’s neck or in the slyness of a koi. These exaggerations give each figure personality, without losing a sense of truth.
The life behind the title
Spend a couple of hours with Diaz and he will lead you through his collection of cars, including a red-hot Alfa Romeo once owned by bon vivant Johnny Ysmael, one of its kind in the world. He guides us to an upper lounge and poses for photos with natural ease. Silvana comments that he has ten sisters, one of whom is Miss Universe Gloria Diaz, so he had to learn how to make an impression early on.
Even in his eighties, Diaz moves with style and a wink of mischief that matches the energy of his work. He talks about his three children proudly and often—Romina, Illac, and Marco, each successful in their own right. While he tells many stories from around the world, perhaps it is family that anchors his rhythm as a creative spirit in the world.
Diaz’s latest show, “Larger than Life,” does not appear to be a mere title, but the way Diaz lives. Intuitive, light, and attentive to the pulse of the world, the exhibition shows that life, much like his art, is best when it’s full of color.
“Larger Than Life” runs from Nov. 22 to Dec. 10 at J Studio, Pasillo 18, La Fuerza Plaza, Gate 1 Compound, 2241 Chino Roces Ave. For inquiries, contact 0935 537 6399
