BANANACUE
REPUBLIC
Vol I, No. 12
Nov 24, 2004

by Dulz Cuna

Up Close: Pied Painter by the Sea -- Nunelucio Alvarado

Thinking that the VIVA ExCon 8 (Visayan Islands Visual Artists Exhibit Conference) in Bacolod, Negros Occidental got the better of me with all the colorful whirling, artmaking, critiquing, camaraderie and bonding, I decided to accept the invitation to visit the dominion of my favorite Visayan painter par excellence Nunelucio Alvarado..

I met Nune at the VIVA ExCon 5 in Cebu in 1998 and from then we struck a friendship likened to Zeus and Psyche... Negrense's pride Nunelucio Alvarado's stature in Contemporary Art in the Philippines is synonymous to the fame of an upcoming Amorsolo..As one of the famous Negros Artistas who live and paint the plight of the Negrense people in the sugar industry, particularly the plantation and mill workers, Nune stands out with the braggadoccio of the brush.. a community-immersed artist who articulates for the downtrodden their muted aspirations for a better life, a role enhanced by his membership in several Ilonggo artists' organizations, notably the highly politicized Black Artists in Asia.

His canvasses never fails a matter of impact. It always does. He punctuates with the strength of pathos and symbolic assertion. I was staggered by Nune's paintings and drawings the moment he showed me his sketchpads. He was the Father of my Soul...

After living the Excon in a huff (some trouble with an omission in the Island Reports), his son Burog (Nune the second) came to me and said that Papa was inviting me and us (the Leyte artists) to his sea residence in Pabrika, Sagay City..I did look forward to that. I was always a hopeless romantic fan of Hemingway types and his characters, or the brooding Heathcliff ones in Wuthering Heights..The dynamism of Nune, his divinely painful and brilliant aura drew me to his studio haunt by the sea..

Crusoe-like, Nune lived and painted by the sea with his family. He constructed bamboo houses with lanais for visiting artists on "residency hiatus". He had hammocks for beds but had lots of magazines where one could browse idly of idyllically... He said he only painted at daytime because real lighting came from the light of day; at nighttime he was content to sip his sweet tuba, coffee or swig of Fundador with his little battery radio telling of the latest news in Hiligaynon... We talked of everything from the shooting stars that surrounded us to the plight of the mill workers to the sweet fish we were about to eat for supper... Nune, at that moment was like the God Neptune who rose from the sea and told me there are many pictures to paint in this world of pathos, and many metaphors to juxtapose to get your expression through. The brush, the huge canvasses, the bold colors and their grotesque forms showed the Alvarado sense of empathy . Nune's sons, Burog, Boogie and Nuklar took in his father's footsteps...their works a diminutive of Nune's articulation but intrinsic of their own personal character... I told Nune, "in the sugar cane field, you must be Grade A, you have produced fine talented sons with your vision."

Nune took us to their new gallery at Sagay city. "Bunga" Art Gallery was indeed a gallery for his sons. And as metaphors are metaphors, an exhibit of totems was about to be open, which I told Nune, mga "Kanunehan" or his "phallic symbols"...He laughed. He liked that, he liked to show strength in motifs. A phallic symbol sure does display masculine strength...I winked.."don't worry Nunelucio, you have made me a Goddess..."

Si Guapo kag Si Guapo

On the way back home on a bus to Cebu, my head was filled to brim with Nune's colors, motifs and the unrelentless emotion for the plight of the common tao...My one-year artist block was slowly disintegrating...and I made a mad rush to Mercury Drug to buy me pads...I became a Goddess in that visit to the Zeus of the brush...I was raring to go back to my canvasses again...

Posted 11/23/04. Send comments to: bananacue_republic@yahoo.com

"Nune, at that moment was like the God Neptune who rose from the sea and told me there are many pictures to paint in this world of pathos, and many metaphors to juxtapose to get your expression through."

Nune Alvarado