Betsy Westendorp’s infinite atlas of clouds

The swathes of clouds and skies in enormous canvases almost swallow up the living room of the apartment in Makati City where 85-year-old Spanish artist Betsy Westendorp holds court. We are indoors, yes, but you can almost feel the breeze as the artist’s Manila Bay sunset paintings engulf you in a near state of grace  feather canyons everywhere. Call them “atmosferografia,” these cool poetics of clouds. 

“Maybe people are more accustomed to my flowers (as well as still lifes and portraits),” Betsy explains, “but I want them to enjoy my clouds as much as I enjoy painting them.”

In an interview with Betsy, which came out in The STAR in March 2009, the artist says she first arrived in Manila in 1951 shortly after marrying Filipino-Spanish businessman Antonio Brias. She and her husband, who worked at San Miguel, would take long walks and equally long drives through the then-named Dewey Boulevard to watch the setting sun. “For my husband, the sunset was very important, very beautiful, so I learned to love the sunset because of him.” Antonio passed away in 1976.

Later on when the family settled into the bayside residence in Manila, Betsy followed a routine religiously. â€œBy 5:30 p.m. I would be looking out the window with my camera or taking note of all the colors that I saw.” Alizarin crimson, check. Burnt sienna, check. Ultramarine blue, check. My-oh-my, one could only imagine how the city has metamorphosed through the eyes of Betsy, through the swirl of decades  from all that blue to all this gray.

“I don’t paint what I see in that case,” Betsy quips. “I paint what I remember,”

And what Betsy Westendorp remembers is what will be showcased in her latest exhibition titled “Betsy Westendorp: Portrait of an Artist,” which opens on Jan. 17, Thursday, at Manila Contemporary’s Main and Upstairs Galleries. The show is presented by Manila Contemporary in collaboration with Silvana Diaz and Galleria Duemila.

Curator Eva McGovern explains, “It would be exciting to present these atmosferografia or skyscapes because they really represent the emotional side of Betsy. They span 20 or 30 years and represent different moments in her life, her emotional states of being. Some of them appear happy or peaceful. Some of them appear conflicted or melancholic.”

Thus, these paintings are “emotional abstracted snapshots” of the artist as a person in the course of time. 

And this is what Betsy Westendorp is: all mane of white hair, one charmer of a woman, and that ever-pleasant soul you’d always want to talk to in this town overrun by art forgers, self-aggrandizers and charlatans.

Rows and floes of angel hair

It sits there in the room: a self-portrait of an elegant woman in her twilight years in a world gone painfully gray.

“I always like to paint portraits from life,” Betsy explains.

There is an ineffable relationship between the painter and the sitter. Making portraits from photographs is a shortcut, all right, but something very important is lost in the process. When you’re sitting face-to-face with the subject, Betsy stresses, it’s as if you’re reading the person’s mind, or getting into the seams of his or her soul.

She used Golden Open acrylics for her self-portrait. She describes how it has all the good qualities of oil paint and none of the drawbacks of acrylic. The artist jokingly says she did a lot of “brush-shop” with that particular painting.

“When I make self-portraits, I have to look at myself in the mirror. And in this light, at my age… I don’t like what I see (laughs).”

She paints every day, even if it could be quite difficult to paint in a city where something is always happening. Betsy loves attending exhibit openings of peers, friends, acquaintances, and young artists. She is a much-loved elder stateswoman in the Philippine art scene. 

“I want a few years more to keep on painting, but the problem is, at my age, you know the time is short. That’s a pity. It’s a very disagreeable feeling (laughs).”

Maybe her atmosferografia are her own “portraits” of the city of one’s ultimate destination.

“You could see it that way,” she muses. “And that’s where my loved ones are.”

Her husband. Some friends. Her grandson who left this world early (who would’ve been 30 by now). And all the painters, poets and seers of visions in the heavens.

Not yet, we do hope.

Betsy Westendorp is irreplaceable. Her anecdotes alone  of studying under Fernando Amorsolo, of meeting Salvador Dali, of doing portraits of Filipino iconic figures and Spanish and English royalty  are simply invaluable. And more stories behind those endless skies have yet to be told.

“When I am in front of a blank canvas, and I am supposed to paint clouds,” Betsy pauses, “I just let go.”

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“Betsy Westendorp: Portrait of an Artist” is on view from Jan. 17 to Feb. 10 at Manila Contemporary, 2314 Whitespace, Don Chino Roces Ave. Extension (formerly Pasong Tamo Extension), Makati City.

The Main Gallery features the artist’s atmosferografia series, while the Upstairs Gallery features portraits and photographic documentation of her iconic commissioned works. Architect Ramon Antonio has designed a bespoke room to show viewers how collectors live with Betsy’s art. The artist herself will be present in the gallery to interact with audiences.  

For information, call 576-5024 or visit www.manilacontemporary.com.