THE PERVASIVE SPECTATOR by Sherwin Coronado

Elmer Roslin's recent oeuvre consists of large and medium scale oil paintings capturing an intimate affinity with his subject, the complexity and sharpness of his observational skills, his proficient handling of medium and eloquent technique alongside forceful ideological and conceptual visions recurring in the realm of his creative mind.

In years of prolific artistic output after he bagged the Grand Prize in the Oil Painting Category of the Metrobank Young Painter's Annual National Painting Competition Year 2000, Roslin's art has matured into an early apotheosis worthy of critical acclaim. His show entitled "TAUMBAYAN" – a tagalog word play literally and metaphorically concocting 'tao' (human), 'tambay' (bystander), 'tambayan' (a place for hanging-out) and 'bayan' (town/country) to signify an inherent relativity between the four concepts. The conceptual proximity linked with the socio-cultural interactions between 'tao', "tambay', 'tambayan' and 'bayan' becomes his underlying theoretical framework for the distinctive interplay of elements, ideas and forms in his works. The tambayan, like the chancy games of nine-ball, terembe, mah-jong or videogames, with its therapeutic powers to shut down reality, provides a common social venue for the throngs of the apathetic, bored, hopeless, and unemployed a temporarily elevated existence secluded by optimism and depression, by tranquil escapism and an intoxicated melancholy.