The distinguished one was smiling at me, inseparable beer bottle in hand. We nodded at one another, and before he could turn away, I quipped that right over his shoulder seemed his very facsimile, if on acrylic on canvas and hanging on a distant wall.
It was in fact one of his recent works, a small-sized, unframed painting of a large-eyed fellow presiding solo over a table, where a bottle was within reach. Nune grinned and acknowledged the compliment, then explained that the work was titled "Lutaw sa Panganod" – Cebuano for "Floating in the Clouds."
My turn to break out approvingly, for in that hour we were sharing deep nocturnal space in that exact same noosphere Nune’s Sugbuanon had described; we were up to our foreheads in communal "spherikitiks" – if he via San Miguel and me care of single malt (same however different our SM proclivities).
But why a title in Cebuano? When we knew Nune like we knew Nune? That is, he was Ilonggo, in fact the dominant bright star in the Negros Occidental constellation, who has contemporarily led his kasimanwa artists into a roaring Renaissance of spirit and Spring-is-here cornucopia of visual art.
We’ve followed his career since he burst into the scene with his angular lines and straight-on, staring-you-in-the-eye perspective: rough-hewn common folk defiantly imposing themselves so entirely on canvases they were nearly leaping out of the confined space.
But it was a numinous, luminous area of familiarity his subjects occupied, by dint of that special artist’s eye that elaborated on the very parameters his youth and maturation had revolved around, became involved with in full indigene pride, and now evolved into – a welter of firm creases, curlicues commanded to go stiff in sheer strength of cross-hatching craft, shadows brought out into the open, turned luminescent, for these were Alvarado’s folks, these were us, these were the inhabitants of a serial mural parading a history of defiance.
Yes, that was how I assessed Nunelucio Alvarado’s works each time I saw them elevating Penguin’s walls as well as those of other galleries, even of some enlightened homes. Of course my evaluation was informed of the same stuff he ingested or imbibed, thus the rapturous instant critique of recognition hovering just a little above Cloud 9. Neither the chewy choc nor the surfing break off Surigao, but akin to both, wave after sweet wave of Nune’s bold strokes rushing in, rushing out of his memorious brow.
There’s no getting back to earth during those moments. Shock and awe and watery vapors accompany us for the ride. We are lofted here and there. We hark back to the cubistic resplendence of Ossorio’s "The Angry Christ" mural behind and beyond the altar of that unique chapel in Victorias. We recall the celebration of the timawa’s tools and other farm implements in another place of worship at the Gastons’ Hacienda Rosalia in Manapla. We remember Peque Gallaga and his brothers, all seemingly soft-cuddlesome yet turning instantly brawny and brash when they spoke of the terrible tamawo. And quite recently, was that last year when we were last there, we collude in retrospect with Charlie Co and Dennis Ascalon, formidable painters also leading the charge of what has been called the "Black Artists of Asia," such has been their influence along with Alvarado’s.
So why float in the clouds in Cebuano? Well, our South is like that, they have a cross to bear, together. Island-hopping is leapfrogging from this memory of Sword to that memory of Cross, the straits in between offering easy passage as it did when the shrillness of Spain began to lop off the empire of the Shri-Vijayan into small, skittering pebbles.
I surmise that Nune Alvarado – himself looking bronzed tisoy – often drank of myths and legends as he did the chronicles of archipelago: we were one because we were conquered, one by one.
And it’s taken centuries, but now a wondrous comeuppance is at hand. With words, with oils and acrylic, with pens and pencils have we stabbed back at that panoply of memory, punctured the colonial tapestry as Santi Bose had with pointillist resolve. And having done that, our artists now surf right across the peak of the wave, in their prime, as we establish superiority over the past by heralding and halcyon-ing the present: our rootstock of peasants and revolutionaries, our rituals and our women, our racial sacraments and maternal beatitudes.
Aye, those are the stuff our artists now brandish the once-subject tools of spirit with. And we overcome, again and again.
No, it wasn’t the whisky or the beer, never fear, which did me in that night at Penguin, surrounded by kindred and a dozen artworks by Nunelucio Alvarado. My monk-ish perorations then are haunted now by news that this artist has mounted another exhibit, this time in … why, the Queen City!
The show, titled Simple Living, has been on exhibit for a fortnight now, having had its opening with cocktails on Sept. 2, but will last till Sept. 28, at the Elizabeth Mall Art Gallery on Leon Kilat and N. Bacalso Sts. in Cebu City.
It includes acrylics on canvas as well as illustrations done in India ink on paper (36 x 26 cm uniform size). For a fresh new twist, Nune also unveils sculptural figures with bold designs. Found objects like bottles are turned into "exciting new creations" as "accent pieces (that) are decorative and at the same time functional." Talk about turning trash into treasures.
Notes on Alvarado’s Simple Living state further that "the artist extends a feeling of optimism and exquisite tenderness for everyday heroes – all the nameless, faceless people living simple lives – subjects whom he considers his eternal inspiration. Done in different mediums, his works reveal a softer streak among the many facets of his art-making. It is indeed a refreshing surprise, a well-timed deviation from his often dark, disturbing, haunting images and settings."
Much as I’d love to, I don’t have to sail off to Leon Kilat St. (a.k.a. Pantaleon Villegas of Negros Oriental) to say Amen to that. Sacra ng draco! Nune’s done it again, turned soft and gentle, but not genteel, from dark and disturbing, heh-heh.
The haunting and shining will however stay as modes of reverberation for this special artist who founded the Pamilya Pintura and Pintor Kulapol groups, twice received the prestigious Philip Morris Art Awards (in 1997 and 1999), the 13 Artists Award in 1992, and Manila’s Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan Award last year.
His tag as a "social realist" notwithstanding, Nunelucio Alvarado’s head, forehead, knit brows and knavish eyes will always catch the streaking crest of surf in his, make that our by the hour, noosphere.