In The Texture of Emotion, five artists — Carlo Magno, Anton del Castillo, Fred Tan, Patrick Esmao, and Ricky Francisco — explore how surface, texture, color, composition can provoke an affective response from the viewer even if the artworks are not driven by narrative. Through their distinctive practices in non-figurative abstraction, they remind us that the visual field is not only perceived by the eyes but [also] felt through the body.

The exhibition is grounded in the notion that the eye is itself a tactile organ — an extension of the sense of touch. Sight, in this understanding, is not passive reception but active encounter. As the gaze moves across textured surfaces and chromatic fields, it performs a kind of caress. Each artist, through material nuance and compositional intent, provokes this haptic tension between distance and intimacy, inviting the viewer not merely to see, but to feel the visual.

Magno’s luminous planes, rhythmic geometries and use of disparate materials articulate serenity and poise despite their complexity; Fred Tan’s combination of impastos and space, as well as fluid motion of color harmoniously presents seemingly opposite attributes of serenity and activity; Esmao’s chromatic expanses punctuated by metallic thread suggest quiet meditation through rhythm and shape; Francisco’s reflective abstractions meditate on stillness and movement within light; while del Castillo’s tactile, almost sculptural surfaces evoke the spiritual weight of matter itself. Together, they form a dialogue on how abstraction–often misread as detached from emotion–can in fact be a conduit for empathy, reflection and memory.

The works tempt the urge to touch and yet resist it. Their surfaces — impasto-ed, layered, and even heavily glazed — draw the viewer near, only for depth to shift and dissolve with a change of vantage. As surface and depth engage in a continual play, the image becomes mutable: its perception dependent or the viewer’s physical position and movement. Thus, each encounter is singular. No work may be seen the same way twice, for vision itself is in motion.

The Texture of Emotion proposes that abstraction is not a retreat from reality but a deeper immersion into its sensory and psychological dimensions. In an age saturated with images, these four artists offer not immediacy but introspection; not depiction, but experience. Theirs is a language of texture and perception, where emotion is not portrayed but embodied.

The Texture of Emotion is on view from 11 to 28 October at the Artistspace located at the ground level of Ayala Museum Annex, Makati Avenue corner De La Rosa Street, Greenbelt Park, Makati City.