Translucency in Paintings

 

Essay 27. TRANSLUCENCY IN PAINTINGS

By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol

JUSTINESS HENREY GODIO's artistic talent manifested itself early. He was still a child when he began drawing without prompting and guidance from anyone. This urge to create impelled him to level up and try watercolor and other paints next. He learned easily, because he didn't find studying art a chore. Drawing and mixing colors were pleasure activities for him.

A native of Koronadal City, South Cotabato,  Godio was born on March 23, 1987. He could have entered fine arts school if his family had the means to support him through college. They didn't. So, Godio was dissuaded from enrolling in that, some would say, very impractical course. Nevertheless, his lack of formal schooling didn't prevent him from acquiring the knowledge and skills required of a professional artist. What Godio learned through years of unwavering practice of art enabled him to be hired as an artist in a commercial company.

Godio joined a group of painters in his province to gain exposure. This group was actively exhibiting in their place during fiestas, and it was through their exhibits that Godio's name began to get known. Godio was prolific. He did paintings on various subjects using a variety of styles. But after having seen print reproductions of National Artist Vicente Manansala's works, Godio gravitated to cubism, and steadily turned out still-lifes in the manner of that master.

Cubism was introduced here in the Philippines by Vicente Manansala who absorbed its principles while on a painting scholarship in Paris, where he was mentored by Fernand Leger. The works of the recognized pioneers of Cubism, Pablo Picasso and George Braque,  were so similar during the early years of their collaboration. But both painters traversed dissimilar stylistic paths later on. Other cubists followed suit and did their own variations of cubism. Especially Fernand Leger who invented a variant of cubism derisively labelled "tubism"  by the art critic Louis Vauxcelles because of Leger's repeated use of cylinders in delineating human forms and other objects in his paintings.

Manansala created too his own variation of cubism. Manansala's version was dubbed transparent cubism because he invariably segmented his forms and overlaid seemingly transparent - or to be more exact, translucent - triangular planes over surfaces he painted earlier. These technique by Manansala was what Godio absorbed, although he also admitted that Romulo Olazo's work were inspiring him more lately. It is not surprising that Godio admires both painters. Their styles have a look Godio is so enamored with - which is translucency. Manansala and Olazo differed though in their choice of motifs. Where Manansala often painted angularized human figures, Olazo, in his diaphanous series, clung more to non-objective abstraction - the stylistic path Godio seems to be traversing nowadays.

Today, Godio is gradually becoming prominent. He was often invited to join group shows. The more significant of these shows were the "Engkwentro sa Labuyo" and the "FilArts" art exhibits. The next step for him if he wish to continue his push to fame and remain in the art public's eye is to mount solo art shows as often as he could.