Exhibitions

WOMAN as icon

Filipino artist Fil Delacruz raises his favorite subject to a stature approaching sainthood.
by Eva Florentino

WOMAN AS A LIFE-GIVER and Nature as Mother are recurring themes in all 24 prints and paintings exhibited recently by Filipino artist Fil Delacruz at Cas Victoria, Jersey City, New Jersey in the United States. A tribute to women the world over, the exhibit was opened by Delacruz's 89-year-old mother, who gave a touching response to her son's offering.

In his latest collection Delacruz integrated the mother-and-child motif with natural forms in rich textures, as in the use of gold leaves to raise his women to the stature of icons, echoing medieval rendetions of saints in churches and illuminated manuscript.

Done on hand-made abaca paper, the paintings are rendered in mixed media , mostly acrylic and oil pastel. Recurring soft curves

delineate elements untouched by man's destructive hand. But one piece tells a disturbing truth: diagonal lines across the canvass like fallen trees in the foreground, almost hiding a woman's face. The clever compositional device also serves to portray ecological destruction.

BRIDGING THE GAP

SOME prints are in traditional black and white; others are hand- coloured. Delacruz says he is attempting to bridge the gap between the audience of painting and that of prints. Delacruz's primary expertise is in mezzotint, a printing process popular in Europe, especially in France, in the 16th century. The process is tedious and difficult, but the artist says his drive lies in the challenge of hard work.

"I begin with a concept, an abstract picture that develops into a more realistic image and then becomes surrealistic - forms and images that agitate the viewer's mind. I want to be free and spontaneous, not to be confined by studies and norms." The result; dreamlike-like expressions of his subconscious.

Delacruz is one of the most active artists in the Philippine

contemporary art scene. He has received numerous awards in prestigious national competitions, and is currently president of the Philippine Association of Printmakers (PAP). Unlike most visual artists, Delacruz is very articulate. He was senior lecturer at the University of the Philippines for three years, and at the Philippine High School for the Arts for two years. With his collegues at the PAP, he conducts printmaking workshops for gallery owners and their clients. "To develop their understanding and appreciation for the art," he says, "they have to know the process and techniques."

As a boy growing up in Hagonoy, Bulacan, Delacruz's idea of an artist was one who painted billboards. He didn't think it was such a bad idea. Soon after he decided that such a man was what he wanted to be, he met Cenon Rivera, well-known Bulakeño artist and, at the time, Director of the Fine Arts Department at the University of Santo Tomas (UST). Rivera enlightened the young man on art as a career.

Delacruz's parents were at first skeptical of his career choice. As a compromise, the son took up Advertising at UST. His passion for art undiminished through many years, however, Delacruz was to later take up further studies at Clot, Bramsen et Georges, a lithographic workshop in Paris, France.

MUSE IN THE WILDERNESS

In THE 1970's, with a sudden rush in the search for Filipino identity in art, Delacruz was among many artists who set out to investgate folk art, tribal art, and culture outside cities.

While working as an art consultant for a heavy equipment company, he went on a photo assignment to Sultan Kudarat in Cotabato. There he found his muse. He was instantly fascinated with the land and the people of one of the ethnic tribes, the Manobos. Back in Manila after the assignment, he packed a bigger bag and headed excitedly for the forests of Cotabato, where he stayed for three years, interacting with the natives and learning their art.

Looking back, Delacruz says there really are no rigid measures of beauty. It all depends, he says, on where you situate

yourself. For instance, he explains, the Greek standards cannot be applied to the beauty he found among the Manobos, among them Gunsal Malayo, a woman who served as his model and symbol of the tribe. "She has this aura," Delacruz says.

In his paintings, he has made her a diwata. A brown goddess.

LIFESTYLE ASIA
SEPTEMBER 1998