SEND IN THE CLOWN (style today, tuesday, july 14,1998)

LIFE, to Fernando Escora, may not exactly be a harlequinade, but with his view of human relationship, it comes close. "People can be quite deceiving," he says. "But instead of faces masks, they were suits of clowns."

Thus, Candy Dark, a light hearted visual essay into his little world of sadly amusing--or amusingly sad, "plastic sentiments."

This is his second at Hiraya Gallery. In about a dozen oils on canvas it presents people, apparently young, in ordinary enough situations, but with only a hint of their realattitudes and personalities in their eyes and bodily gestures.

Escora, is a graduate of Bachelor of Fine Arts major in painting at the University of the Philippines, which he attend as a working student. He has been a recipient of several art awards, notably as finalist in the Shell National Student Art Competition in 1993, 1994 and 1995, and as a jurors' choice in the AAP Annual Art Competition 1993.

In Candy Dark, Escora says that he doesn't generalize in his observation of human foibles, but stresses that it cuts across sexes, which is one reason why his subjects are in costumes. "Harlequins have no gender," he points out.

Candy Dark runs from July 17 to 3,1998. Hiraya Gallery.