FIDELIS BALAGTAS BELDA: MIXING ART WITH MUSIC

By Arnel Mirasol

Fidelis Balagtas-Belda earned her Bachelor of Music degree major in Piano and minor in Voice from the Centro Escolar University's Conservatory of Music in 1986.  She took further studies in Violin and Voice Concentration in the University of the Philippines. Even before finishing her music studies, Des (as she is called by friends) was already teaching. She was also an on-call artist, an organist, and a choral conductor then.

Des now teaches Music in Isidore de Seville Integrated School in Malolos, Bulacan, and offers tutorials in her home music room FBb Studio.. She also taught before at the Centro Escolar University Malolos, La Consolacion College, St. Rita College, Lord's Angels Montessori, St. Joseph School in San Pablo, Laguna, and at the American-owned and run Scoula dei Bambini di Sta. Teresita.

But Des had lately decided to mix music and art. Although she already had an inkling of her artistic talent when she was in grade one, she only recently chose to devote much of her time to painting. But Des did it with a vengeance, one must say - because she has become very prolific. She is capable of turning out in a day several watercolors of her favorite subjects, which are flowers, pets, and rustic scenery.

Des, a newcomer in the art scene, had joined only two art exhibits so far, both with the Kapentura Art Group, and both of them this year. She was with the Kapentura Art Group when it participated in the Bonifacio Global City's Art & Appetite event last May. Des calls that event her debut as visual artist. She also exhibited two pieces for Kapentura's Krusada sa Kalikasan show at the Artasia Gallery which opened last November 8. Des is a regular at Kapentura's Monday sketching session at the Starbucks in Robinson Malolos. She also goes on plein air painting excursions with the group at a farm in Barangay Dakila, Malolos, Bulacan.

The farm belong to the family of fellow Kapentura member Nemencio Macapugay (Nemie), who is also a music teacher and painter like Des. They were former choirmates, and it was him who rekindled in Des the desire to return to art making. They worked in the same music studio years before, where Nemie, who was concurrently a comics illustrator and cartoonist, taught classical guitar. That was where Des saw Nemie painting during intermissions in their work. Years passed, and when they chanced upon each other again, Des recommended Nemie as music teacher at Isidore de Seville. They also acted as facilitators in a workshop, where Des handled the Music class and Nemie, Art. Des sat in in Nemie's class, and it was there that Des innate artistic talent was honed. Nemie recommended Des to Kapentura leader Danny Pangan, who, when he saw Des' watercolors readily accepted her as member of the group.

Although Des expressed admiration for the works of several painters, like Vincent Van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, and Pablo Picasso, her  two paintings at the Krusada sa Kalikasan exhibit clearly showed the influence only of Matisse - with her fauvist-inspired color scheme and naif formal qualities and rendering. Her mixed-media painting below, Kaunlaran at Kasarinlan (Progress and Independence), depicts the dichotomy between the rich and the poor, between the high-rise dwellings and the barung-barongs (shacks). But the title of this painting could be quite puzzling.They seem to denote not a current state of affairs but an aspiration for the future. What Des meant perhaps is independence and self-reliance will only come about if the poor are no longer poor. And she seem to add that the trappings of progress exclude stinking waterways clogged with garbage  - primary traits of waterways clogged with slum-dwellers on their banks.

Her other painting, Marine Paradise, show the creatures that make the seas a pleasant place to see, to fish, and to dive in. This painting seem to be more direct to the point, in a manner of speaking,  because of its plain depiction of beautiful marine life. Or, is it? Her use of beads, sea shells, gift wrappers, corrugated papers, ribbons, buttons, styrofoam, earphones, computer chips, and other electronic materials as collage material would make us wonder and think otherwise, because they are all junk materials - trash that mindless people throw into the sea. So, this painting also makes a powerful statement after all - an indictment, in fact, of man's wasteful ways.

Des' husband is Samson "Sammy" Belda. They met in Manila while they were still in college. Des calls both Malolos, Bulacan and San Pablo, Laguna home, because although she was born and raised in Malolos, she and Sammy have a house in San Pablo where Sammy in turn was born and raised. Her idyllic roots and present day milieu could not but be conducive to her music and art making. So, it's not puzzling why Des the painter is very prolific. Des and Sammy has an only child, Miguel Mari, who, although he can draw and play the guitar, can't be categorized as a bona fide artist yet. He is more into sports, being a full athletic scholar for tennis at the University of the Philippines, Diliman. That facet of Miguel Mari also makes Des proud, because his athleticism is another proof of his taking after his mother : Des herself was a tennis player when she was sixteen, and a  triathlete years later. But Des is quick to add that Miguel Mari also took after Sammy, who also excels in tennis. Both father and son, in fact, always win in tournaments, especially if they are partners in the doubles competition.

Kasarinlan at Kaunlaran, mixed-media, 30 X 30 inches

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  Marine Paradise, mixed-media, 20 X 20 inches

  11/13,

Marine Paradise, mixed-media, 20 X 20 inches

FRANK CAÑA'S PORTRAITS OF WOMEN AS MOTHER NATURE

By Arnel Mirasol

I know painters who didn't finish college but still went on to make indelible marks in the Philippine art scene. A notable example is Mauro Malang Santos - or simply, Malang. Malang's protege Franklin Caña Valencia would be another. Frank formally entered the world of serious painting when he joined the Saturday Group in 2001. Before that, he was at the pinnacle of his career in advertising working as design director and later on, department head, for J. Romero and Associates. Malang is the acknowledged "spiritual leader"  of the Saturday Group, its guru - not because he is the oldest member, but because of his artistic achievements and stellar status in the Philippine art scene.

Malang, in turn, was one of  Vicente Manansala's proteges. Manansala was that master of transparent cubism - who passed on to his followers his fascination with cubism.. These followers are Hugo Yonzon, Oscar Zalameda, Manny Baldemor, and Ang Kiukok, to name just the really famous ones. But their individual styles, even if from a common cubist wellspring diverged at some point, and have become styles distinctly identified with each individual artist. Although he'll be quick to assert that his work was just cubist-inspired (which is true in a way) Frank truly is a cubist - a fourth generation cubist, because of his penchant for segmenting his paintings into curves, crescents, and polyhedrons of different gradations and hues. But in all fairness to Frank, his adoption of the cubist idiom, is just coincidental. It was not Picasso, not Manansala, and not even Malang, who gave Frank an idea on what style to follow. His future painting style became etched in his mind very early in his life, even before he learned how to handle a paintbrush, when he happened to peer closely at marbles which he held against the sun and saw trapped inside metal crescents, twisted and straight, that glow and glitter like the patterned particles inside a kaleidoscope. 

Although he arrived at his signature style through a path he himself blazed, Frank admits admiration for Malang and the watercolorist Frank Webb for their colors and design principles, and for Gustav Klimt for his theme or subject matter.

Frank studied at The University of Santo Tomas College of Architecture and Fine Arts, but failed to finish the course because of deficiencies in his Spanish subject and ROTC (Reserve Officers Training Course). Frank jokingly said that he ran away from the ROTC MPs (Military Police) because they were teaching him how to kill, when he felt deep inside that he is an artist, a creator - and not a warrior. Although he failed in the above mentioned subjects, Frank claimed that he got high grades in the so-called major or laboratory subjects, which is not hard to believe. 

Frank's family was poor, that's why he was compelled early on to work.  He accepted drawing jobs from his classmates and teachers when he was in grade school. He also accompanied his father on his rounds to peddle tinapa (smoked fish), and helped his elder sister in selling vegetables in their hometown of Calauag, Quezon. He also worked part time at his elder brother Magoo Valencia's art and sign shop where he was assigned the job of erasing the old letterings and drawings on materials they will reuse. He had also worked as contractual factory worker for a few months when he was in high school to earn money for his school uniform and notebooks. A not very promising start, I would say, for one who would later become a master painter. 

In 1982, Frank left for Jeddah to take on the job of graphic designer. He worked in Jeddah for eleven years. His years there stood him in good stead when he returned to the country for good. He easily became art director for J. Romeo and Associates, was promoted to design director, and after years of notable work, to department head. Frank has had ten solo shows and have participated in more than 50 group art exhibits, many of them abroad. He had exhibited in the United States - in New York, New Jersey, and Arizona - and in Hongkong, Singapore, and Malaysia. He was Art Manila newspaper's Young Artist of the Year for 2002, and was a winner in the First Saudia Art Competition in Jeddah.

Frank entered two paintings for the Krusada sa Kalikasan exhibit of the Kapentura Art Group at the Artasia Gallery - Womanature@15 and Womanature@16. Both are masterful works, interpreting best the theme of the show, which is environmental degradation and its now anticipated regeneration. According to Frank, the naked woman in fetal pose in the painting Womanature@15 represents Mother Nature, who, as an ubiquitous entity, is present everywhere. Each tree trunk is a womb in which she gestates. Thus, each tree trunk cut is Mother Nature herself being cut and destroyed. But hope springs eternal as they say, for it always happen that from a cut tree trunk new leaves may grow heralding rebirth, while butterflies hover expecting the stirring of new flower buds.

Womanature @16, on the other hand, depicts the birthing of a sunlight-bathed Mother Nature, which happens every time a supposedly dead tree survives. This cyclical birth and rebirth process augurs well for our beloved Earth, because it could only mean that all is not lost. That despite the ravage and rapine inflicted on her by man, Mother Nature is resilient enough to withstand those, and emerge triumphant, vital, and strong, and stand guard forever over our forests and seas.

Frank met his future wife, Teresa Servida, in Jeddah. They are blessed with four boys, who Frank said are all artistically-gifted, being frequent winners in art competitions when they were young. But Frank is sad that they opted not to follow their father's artistic path, because they see it as a life of constant struggle to make ends meet. But I don't see that stereotype about "struggling and starving artists" true in Frank's case. Because if there is one artist who is on his way to fame and fortune (if ever he is not there yet), that would be no other than Malang's protege, Franklin Caña Valencia.

Womanature@15,  acrylic on canvas, 30 X 30 inches

Womanatuyre@16, acrylic on canvas, 30 X 30 inches

JOHN WESLEY BAUTISTA'S LUMINIST ABSTRACTS

By Arnel Mirasol

John Wesley Bautista was a product of the University of the East School of Music and Fine Arts, from which he graduated in 1980. He majored in painting. Right after college, he went into painting full-time, inspired perhaps by his brother, the late great painter Glenn Bautista, who's already gaining renown in the early eighties. It was elder brother Glenn, who taught John the rudiments of painting and guided him during the early years of his painting career. But John veered from the theme and style that Glenn was famous for. Although both "luminist" in their rendering techniques, Glenn's paintings almost always have surrealist or fantastic-realist overtones, while John's leaned more towards abstraction. John has had four solo shows so far, and had joined several group art exhibits.
I used the term luminist here in its very narrow sense - that is in its hiding of brushstrokes. Luminism is an American landscape painting style of the 1850s to the 1870s that put emphasis on the effects of light in landscapes. A common characteristic of luminist landscapes were their shiny reflective surfaces caused by the deliberate concealment of brushstrokes - which is to say that the paints were applied thin.The absence of visible brushstrokes in John's work led many who saw them to suspect that he used an airbrush to apply paint - which he categorically denied of course. I can invent a term for John's work - Luminist Abstraction - but more exact, I think, is to place his art, particularly the one below, within the bounds of the Pattern and Decoration (P&D) movement, because of its effort to mimic wallpaper, fabrics, and quilt patterns.
John's wife, Tess Nidea, is skilled in the culinary arts. They met at BF Homes where they both lived at the time. When she suggested that they open a bakeshop and later on a catering business, John left painting for a while to help her with the operation of the business. Their union was blessed with two boys, Wes and John Michael, who are both married with one child each. Both boys were artistically inclined. They are so into art during their grade school years, but with the advent of the computer age, they shifted their focus to mastering computer technology instead. Today, John paints full time.

Where Have All the Green Leaves Gone?, oil on canvas, 50 X 50 inches

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PONZ ZAPANTA'S PRISMATIC WATERSCAPES

By Arnel Mirasol

Ponciano Zapanta  took up Architecture at the National University. His not being able to finish the course led him into a career in the graphic arts and later on into serious painting. Zapanta's first job (or business I should say) was as silkscreen printer - which paid well according to him. He related that he was able to buy land from the earnings of his silkscreen business. Zapanta later on worked as graphic artist in Jeddah and China. It was in Jeddah where Zapanta rediscovered his love for painting when he joined and garnered third place in the First Saudia Open Competition for Heritage and Culture in 1992. He was a finalist in the second edition of the contest in 1994. In 2015, he joined the GSIS painting competition, where he was again a finalist. But it seems that Zapanta's talent isn't limited to the visual arts - he was also a poet who once won a gold medal from the Knights of Rizal for his poetry.

A native of Taytay, Rizal, Zapanta is very active in the art scene there. He is a long time member of the Group Artists of Taytay (GAT) - serving as its president in 1996, and director from 1997 to the present. He was also a member of the Pinta Pilipino Artists Group and subsequently of the Kulay Pinoy in Jeddah. His influences are varied. He likes the Art Nouveau painter and decorative artist Alphonse Mucha, the classical realist Godofredo Zapanta, and the cubist Vicente Manansala - three artists who espoused three very different art styles. Although Godofredo Zapanta, a cousin, was his mentor once, it was to Manansala's transparent cubism style that he eventually gravitated.

His two paintings (below) for the Krusada sa Kalikasan exhibit show what he'd learned and absorbed from Manansala. But with a dissimilarity though. While Manansala segmented his figures into transparent planes of contrasting gradations, Zapanta's prisms were juxtaposed all over the picture plane of his waterscapes. Prism is the key word here, because light when allowed to pass through a prism refracts into rays of different colors - the very colors of the rainbow which Zapanta utilized liberally, and harmoniously I must add, in his works.

Zapanta's wife Janita (Janet) San Juan is a public school teacher. They have two sons, twins, who aside from being both computer-literate are also into painting. Zapanta still lives in Taytay with his family, where he spends most of his time painting.

Fishermen's Border Line, oil on canvas, 24 X 24 inches

Tatsulok: Kapitalista ang nasa Tuktok, Mangingisda ang nasa sulok, oil on canvas, 24 X 24 inches

Arnel Mirasol at the KRUSADA SA KALIKASAN

Arnel Mirasol joins the Kapentura Art Group's KRUSADA SA KALIKASAN show at the Artasia Gallery Megamall, which opens tonight at 6 pm. He has two paintings on display - Brown Hills of Les Zamba and To Ban, or Not to Ban. Brown Hills of Les Zamba (below) refer to the many denuded hills of Zambales province (depicted in the background of the painting) caused by the destructive mining practices there. It is no secret that Americans pioneered the large-scale mining industry in the Philippines, and must therefore share the blame for the ravaging of our environment. But it is no secret either that the Filipino's long-time "love affair" with the United States is still going strong. Many among us still nurture in our hearts and minds the so-called American dream - the craving to go to the US and perhaps stay there for good. That's what the woman who've just picked apples represent, the aspiration to be in America and become an American.

Brown Hills of Les Zamba, 2016, oil on canvas, 36 X 36 inches

To Ban, or Not to Ban (below), on the other hand, is about the dilemma faced by city authorities in the metropolis. Phasing out the tricycles, many would say, is anti-poor. Rightly so. But the long-term and common good dictates that something must be done to curb the air and noise pollution generated by these vehicles. Manila's solution is to replace the old trikes with the "greener" eTrikes or electronic tricycles. That solution seems logical and doable. But knowing how the dynamics of Philippine society works, that solution is easier said than done. 

Mirasol was born and raised in Tondo, Manila, Philippines. He took up Fine Arts, major in painting at the University of Santo Tomas and the University of the East. Mirasol began working as a professional artist in 1981, when he was hired as editorial cartoonist for the newspaper People's Journal Tonight. In 1987, he applied and was hired for the same job in Joe Burgos' We Forum Publications. In between his cartooning stints, Mirasol worked as gallery assistant at the Galeria de las Islas, and was an educational book illustrator from1988 to 2000

In 1996, Mirasol showed his portfolio to Reni Roxas and Marc Singer, publishers of Tahanan Books for Young Readers. Being especially impressed by the cover art he did for Phoenix Publishing House, Reni and Marc commissioned Mirasol to do the illustrations for their collaborative book First Around the Globe: The Story of Enrique. Mirasol went on to illustrate four more books for Tahanan: Tamales Day, The Brothers Wu and the Good-Luck Eel, Once Upon a Time, and Long Ago and Far Away. Mirasol's other books are Origin of the Frog, Anina ng mga Alon (Anina of the Waves), and Mga Modernong Alamat Volume 4. Two of his books are prize-winners abroad. The Origin of the Frog won a runner-up award in the 12th Noma Concours for Picture Book Illustration in Tokyo, in 2000. While the excellence of his illustrations for The Brothers Wu and the Good-Luck Eel landed him on the Honour List of the Basel-based International Board on Books for Young people (IBBY).

Mirasol has had three solo art exhibitions, so far - once at the Hiraya Gallery and twice at the Crucible. He had also participated in several group exhibitions. His paintings in the eighties, although belonging to the social-realist school, were tempered somewhat with surrealist color and humor. One of his paintings from that period, the  Hungry Child Dissected, won in 1984, one of the three Best Entry awards in the First Metrobank Annual painting Competition. 2008 was a landmark year for Mirasol. It was during that time that he finally weaned himself away from the sharp-focus realist style of his previous paintings. While his earlier works were rendered with a meticulous attention to details, his recent illustrations and paintings - with their simplification, distortion, and loud coloration - have a decidedly modern and pop art feel to them. Mirasol still lives in Tondo, with wife Carina, and sons Brando de Niro and Karel Andrei. 

BUTCH JACINTO'S GREEN FOREST AND WHITE RIVERS

BUTCH JACINTO studied Fine Arts at the University of the East School of Music and Fine Arts where he majored in Advertising. He took on a job as tourist guide for a shipping company while still in school to be able to support his studies. After leaving school he worked as Creative Visualizer for Philippine Refining Company (PRC). After thirteen years, he moved to another department in the same company to work as a salesman.

After his stint with PRC, Jacinto put up his own company together with some partners called CDEX System. He was the brain of this company, who does all the designs and the selling functions. CDEX System specialized in fabricating the so-called advertising collaterals, like brochures, newspaper ads, websites, banners, posters, stationary, etc. Jacinto is tech savvy. He is proficient in computer graphics, using adobe, photoshop, and several other programs in his design work. There was even a time when he's into conceptualizing television game shows. Jacinto left CDEX after three years. He then established ADFAB - which was in the same line of business as CDEX System. ADFAB became very successful because of its multinational clientele.

When asked which artist is his favorite, Jacinto said that he admires Fernando Amorsolo the most - an admiration shown in Jacinto's paintings which are of the classical realist sort. He was also influenced  and inspired by contemporaries like Danny Pangan and John Wesley Bautista, who were his classmates in art school. Jacinto likes to paint dark forest scenes enlivened and lightened with white rivers and falls. He also does portraits and still-lifes.

Jacinto's two paintings (below) for the Krusada sa Kalikasan exhibit are perhaps homages to the place he calls home - Antipolo. Although fast becoming urbanized, there are still perhaps pockets of raw woods still existing there. These paintings may be Jacinto's way of preserving for posterity the Antipolo he knew. The title of the second painting, Surviving, is suggestive, not only of the state of Antipolo's woodlands, but also of his own. Jacinto, you see, is a stroke survivor. Although he is relatively okay now, his limb movements are now limited. He can walk, yes, but he can no longer use his right hand for painting. But being the survivor that he is, Jacinto taught his left hand how to handle a brush - which his left hand  learned with flying colors, so to speak - as attested to by the two masterful paintings he exhibited.

Butch Jacinto lives in Antipolo City with wife Mary Ann Legaspi, whom he met in school. They have four children - two boys and two girls - who are all professionals now. Jacinto sent all his kids to exclusive schools, with one even enrolling in flying school, which could be very expensive.  His being able to pay his kids' steep tuition fees is gauge of how successful Jacinto's advertising business was. Today, Jacinto is into painting full time.

Rocks and Stream, acrylic on canvas, 24 X 24 inches

Surviving, acrylic on canvas, 24 X 24 inches

KRUSADA SA KALIKASAN

The Kapentura Art Group opens its first major art exhibit, KRUSADA SA KALIKASAN, at the Artasia Gallery. The paintings to be shown will revolve around the theme of environmental degradation and its now anticipated regeneration. That theme has been tackled many times in the past - particularly and expertly so by Prudencio Lamarroza - whose Amburayan Queen series served as inspirational matrix for many younger painters who looked up to him as their master.

Today, with the assumption by Gina Lopez of the post of DENR Secretary, there is renewed hope that the long-time bane of environmentalist, like destructive mining, illegal fish pens, and air pollution, would finally be put to a stop. That is a tall order. But with the perceived sincerity of the Secretary, and her vigorous and prompt sanction of the mining firms, we can expect nothing less than a real overhaul of the whole ecologically-destructive mindset that pervades our culture.

The Kapentura group was "conceived" in Malolos Bulacan, when the group of Danny Pangan. Josefino Rodriguez, and Nemencio Macapugay lingered around for a while in a coffee-shop inside Robinson Place while waiting for the opening of a film showing in a cinema there. The group had with them that time their sketchpads and drawing tools. So, to pass the time, they proceeded forthwith to do sketches of the pretty baristas and the security guard. That activity became a weekly Monday routine for them. Last May, the group was invited to join the Art & Appetite event at the Bonifacio Global City (BGC), where they rented a booth to display their artworks. That event at the BGC marked the official "birth" of the Kapentura group, who had since exhibited in New York, and had conducted several plein air painting sessions on a farm in Bulacan.

KRUSADA is considered as the group's first major art exhibit because the members will be exhibiting in full force, so to speak, for the first time. Members based in the United States will be here to join the show together with the founding members and the new recruits. The participating artists are Helen Dimaya-Amladi, John Wesley Bautista, Fidelis Balagtas-Belda, Frank Caña, Butch Jacinto, Dan Macapugay, Nemencio Macapugay, Arnel Mirasol, Danny Pangan, Josefino Rodriguez, Avelino San Juan, Jerome Sta. Maria, April Gamboa-Villacorta, Art Zamora, and Ponciano Zapanta.

Frank Caña's masterful painting Womanature@15 (above) interprets best the theme of this show. According to Caña, the naked woman in fetal pose represents Mother Nature, who, as an ubiquitous entity, is present everywhere. Each tree trunk is a womb in which she gestates. Thus, each tree trunk cut, is Mother Nature herself being cut and destroyed. But hope springs eternal as they say, for it always happen that from a cut tree trunk new leaves may grow heralding rebirth, while butterflies hover expecting the stirring of new flower buds.

The show opens on November 8, Tuesday, at 6 pm - and ends on November 18. The Artasia Gallery is on the 4th floor of Megamall Building A, Mandaluyong City. For inquiries, please call Lenny : 09182130590 or 634 5945.