I have known Romeo for a very long time, and our friendship has always revolved around a shared passion for music, art and the strange, often wonderful things that turn up in thrift shops and ukay-ukay. That common interest has provided plenty of opportunities to talk about records, obscure artists, old objects and whatever else happens to catch our attention. It also means I have seen Lee not simply as the underground rockstar in his own right and lowbrow artist whose name has become familiar within Manila's alternative scene, but as a friend who has remained deeply engaged with the things he's into.
When it comes to his art, Lee's paintings are populated by strange figures, animals, distorted human forms and imagined creatures. Some are humorous, some unsettling, and others seem to exist somewhere between the two. There are also recognizable cultural and political references, but they are placed within the same unusual world as Lee’s invented characters.
That mixture gives the exhibition its particular character. Lee does not appear interested in separating the serious from the ridiculous. Political figures can exist alongside monsters; ordinary domestic objects can appear in improbable settings; cartoon-like imagery can sit beside scenes that suggest something darker. The viewer is left to negotiate those contradictions rather than being given a single interpretation.
There is also something distinctly personal about the recurring creatures and figures. They seem less like illustrations of an established mythology than inhabitants of a visual universe that Lee has been building over time. Some recall folklore, comic-book monsters or underground graphic culture, but they remain recognizably his.
His use of intense colors adds to the immediacy of the paintings, while the exaggerated forms give the works a quality that is difficult to confuse with more conventional contemporary painting. The images can be playful without being merely decorative, and grotesque without becoming purely sinister.
That balance is important because humor has always been part of the vocabulary of underground culture. It can make serious subjects less predictable and allow artists to approach power, social conventions and cultural expectations without adopting the solemnity normally associated with political or socially engaged art.
Some of Lee’s works directly engage with political imagery. Rather than presenting political personalities in the familiar language of official portraiture, he places them within the same bizarre environment inhabited by his creatures. The effect is satirical without requiring a lengthy political explanation. People associated with power become part of a larger, absurd human landscape.
For anyone familiar with Lee’s history, these works also make sense as part of a broader lifetime spent outside cultural convention. But it would be reductive to say that everything in the exhibition is simply an expression of punk. Lee’s visual work has its own identity, and his paintings should not have to depend on his musical history to justify themselves.
What his history does provide is context. Lee came of age in a period when Manila's alt scene was still being formed, when music, visual art, independent publishing and other forms of cultural activity often existed in overlapping circles. The boundaries between disciplines were considerably less important than the desire to create something outside the mainstream.
Decades later, those boundaries remain fluid in Lee’s work.
That makes LEEBRING GAS more than a nostalgia trip for people who remember the early Manila punk scene. It is a current exhibition by an artist who happens to have been part of that history from its early days.
There is value in seeing that continuity. Much of alt culture eventually becomes history, with its former rebels turned into names, photographs and anecdotes. Lee remains a practicing artist, and the paintings demonstrate that his creative life did not end when the original underground scene became part of the cultural record.
For me, that is the more interesting aspect of the exhibition. Romeo Lee does not need to be preserved as a relic of Philippine punk. His work is still moving, changing and producing its own strange visual world.
In an art environment that can sometimes become overly concerned with credentials, theoretical positioning and institutional approval, there is something refreshing about an artist who has spent decades making work without appearing particularly concerned about fitting neatly into somebody else’s category. LEEBRING GAS reflects that history without being trapped by it.
He still frequently jams with local alternative bands, bringing his trademark no-holds-barred, electrified Mick Jagger-esque moves to the stage, which earned him the nickname “Wild Thing.” He has also been singing the same song for decades, a signature routine that has become part of his enduring presence in Manila’s alternative music scene.
That combination of music, art and sheer persistence is what makes Romeo Lee more than a figure from Manila’s underground past. He is still painting, still turning up at gigs and still doing things his own way. For those of us who have known him for years and shared his passion for music, art and the odd ukay-ukay treasures, there is something reassuring about that continuity.
After all these years, Romeo Lee remains Wild Thing — and, yes, he is still singing that same damn song.
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