Romeo V. Tabuena moved to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, in 1955, but he always retained his Philippine citizenship. His art changed into a more prismatic style after he moved to Mexico, showing people going about their daily lives.

His earlier works retain a sense of translucency and fluid form and are frequently rendered in jewel toned colours and interlocking cubist influenced shapes, whereas those from his later "Mexican" period are more opaque and have a stylized geometric quality that seem to cross reference the works of fellow Filipino artist Hernando Ocampo and the aesthetic of Mexican muralists.

By this time in his career, Tabuena had moved away from stark landscapes and pure modernism, and his figures had taken on a more naturalistic rendering and emotional intimacy.

Numerous honours have been presented to Tabuena for his service, including the Philippines' 2007 Presidential Merit Award. He attended the eighth Biennial in Sao Paulo, Brazil, as the official representative of the Philippines in 1965. He also had solo exhibitions in Manila in 1973, Mexico City in 1975, and Galeries Bleue in Manila in 1981. In 1995, the Instituto de Bellas Artes, Centro Cultural Ignacio sponsored a significant exhibition of his art in San Miguel de Allende.

The National Art Gallery, National Museum of the Philippines in Manila, the Lopez Memorial Museum in Pasig City, and the Harwood Museum of Art in Taos, New Mexico, all have pieces of his work in their collections.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
On August 22, 1921, Romeo Villalva Tabuena, a painter and printmaker, was born in Iloilo City, Philippines. He majored in painting at the University of the Philippines and studied architecture at the Mapua Institute of Technology in Manila. He continued his education by studying with American artist Will Barnet at the Art Students League in New York in 1952 and with Henri Goetz at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris in 1954.

Tabuena's work typically consists of figures that are put together from subdued, monochromatic outlines despite his use of a wide variety of subject matter and materials. His aesthetic is frequently cubism-inspired, imposing fractal-like geometric patterning on recognizably geometric objects.

He died on October 15, 2015 in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

To be presented by Charlie’s Art Gallery in cooperation with Galeria Lienzo, a collection of Romeo Tabuena's works will be on display at Italia Restaurant in Bacolod City beginning September 21, 2022.