The title, Gas Mask, is self-explanatory, with what looks like Morris Louis’s coloured lines streaking down all around the young lad wearing a military-grade mask. Such masks may be more for the battlefield where chemical warfare is rife, killing innocent women and children in the vicinity. The mask may also be useful with air pollution caused by rampant industrial development, what with an average of 4,000 dying annually in the Philippines from such environmental degradation like illegal mining, logging and automobile fumes. The Philippines, after all, is a signatory of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Rolando (Olan) Ventura is no stranger to Malaysia. He had a solo in Kuala Lumpur in 2009. He was one of the four Jurors Choice Award winners in the Philippines Art Award in 2005. Rolando is the second of the Ventura brothers, the eldest being the more famous Ronald and the youngest Roldan (Manok). Rolando’s Morning After, a 2012 triptych, sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong auction in October 2013 for HK$225,000 (RM124,118).