The Dynamic Lady Painter

 

Essay 59. THE DYNAMIC LADY PAINTER 

By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol 

JOSEPHINE "ESANG" BEJASA ADAME belongs to a not quite long line of Filipino painters who espouse environmentalism in art. Most prominent among them are Prudencio Lamarroza and Rafael Cusi. I was at the opening of "Myth and Magic in the Image of Woman", Prudencio Lamarroza's 1984 art exhibit at the Gallery Genesis which featured his Amburayan Queen series. It was my first time to encounter the actual and stunning works of Lammaroza, the artist dubbed as an ecological painter by art critic Leo Benesa. Rafael Cusi, at around the same time, was also making a name for himself for his series of watercolors celebrating colorful marine life. Cusi is Esang's uncle. Thus, we can surmise that it was he who inspired Esang to take up art as her other profession.

Why other profession? That's because Accounting is what Esang took up in college at the University of Batangas. She later earned her Master's Degree in Public Administration at the Batangas State University. Esang said that even though painting is what she loves most, she still obeyed her parents' wish for her to pursue the more in-demand career in business. Esang's parents are Romeo and Gloria Bejasa. Not being artistically-inclined, being a farmer and public school teacher respectively, it is understandable that both parents did look askance at a career in the Arts, seeing it as one probable way to poverty. That assumption may be right in many cases, but the success of Romeo's first cousin Rafael Cusi, proved that assumption wrong.

Esang admitted that she was indeed inspired by her uncle, whose skill in watercolor painting won for him recognition and renown both here and abroad. To achieve what her uncle had achieved, Esang routinely joined art contests in her school, which pushed her to hone her artistic skills to a higher and higher level. Esang apparently is on the verge of reaching a mature level of artistry even without having studied in a fine arts school, because her recent prolific output displays a quiet mastery of realist painting techniques.

Most compelling is Esang's painting of a waterfall framed by trees which she rendered in a spare color scheme of greens and blues and white. The serenity this painting evokes in viewers is almost meditative, almost zen-like. But Esang is actually a colorist.The great bulk of her work is in fact colorful. One example of such work is her masterful painting of kois. This painting is the nearest in theme to her uncle's body of work, with the difference that Esang's fishes thrive, not in saltwater, but in lotus ponds. We can see from her handling of her medium that the years she spent teaching herself how to paint wasn't wasted, and that she now has enough credentials to impart to beginner painters what she knows about the craft.

When asked if she paints full time now, Esang answered, not yet. She said that she still work as an Administrative Officer in the Department of Education (DepEd). Esang manages her time well, because despite her daily routine of working in her DepEd office, she still finds time to attend to her various art advocacies like facilitating art workshops, speaking in art symposiums, judging in art competitions, promoting the career of other artists in her Pintura page and YouTube channel, showing her works locally and internationally in solo and group art exhibits, and advocating the preservation of a pristine environment through an online platform she created, the Philippine Environmentalist Art Society. In addition to those, Esang also acts as advisor/ moderator of Paschal Artista, an art group based in her hometown San Pascual, Batangas. 

Artist who are lukewarmly driven, and of lesser dynamism, passion and commitment to art couldn't have done everything Esang is doing while still holding a "day job". We shouldn't be astounded therefore by the sheer number and quality of the paintings Esang would surely produce the moment she could finally style herself as a bonafide full-time artist.