Sculptor Daniel Dela Cruz continues to pursue his fascination with the unseen forces that breathe a dynamic quality into otherwise static objects - forces that imply movement and life. With Breath & Balance, sculptures handcrafted using a combination of brass, lead and copper take on female forms, abundant and full, evoking a generosity of spirit, and an overflowing of substance and strength.

Inspired by the dual energies of tai chi - the meditatively slow, and the quick and abrupt - dela Cruz's female figures strike poses, agile and solid in their footing. Dela Cruz has also found inspiration in the transcendent quality of dance; in that moment when sheer movement creates a swelling of emotion that leads to flight.

In the last few years that Daniel dela Cruz, a self-styled late bloomer, has devoted to his art, he has held three highly acclaimed one-man shows. His most recent show, held at the Ayala Museum in Manila, was entitle Himig, and presented his now-iconic rotund women as entranced by music, and the music that they made.

Shapes and forms melded one into the other - instruments into the human form, and vice versa - as dela Cruz portrayed women in "all her delightful contradictions."