Water Buffalo, 1966

This work is a solid brass or bronze sculpture of a stylized carabao (water buffalo) mounted firmly on a polished wooden block, featuring clean, smooth planes combined with simplified, elongated horns. The artist utilizes smooth, reflective metallic surfaces that catch the light to highlight the sculpture's volume, while elongated horizontal lines emphasize the animal's weight, strength, and grounded posture. The sculpture celebrates the carabao as a timeless symbol of Filipino agricultural life, resilience, and hard work, transforming a common beast of burden into a heroic figure by simplifying its anatomy into smooth geometric planes. The sculpture is exceptionally successful due to its elegant simplicity and brilliant utilization of material texture, demonstrating how traditional rural subjects can be beautifully modernized through minimalist form.