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PHILIPPINE STAR – ARTS Lifestyle sections
December 1, 2003
Portrait of the artist as a housewife
By IGAN D’BAYAN
For artist Rona Buenaseda-Chua, everyday is like slipping and sliding into two separate realities. She paints. She cooks. She paints. She washes the dishes. She paints. She drives the kids to school. She paints. She washes clothes. She paints. She fetches the kids from school. How Rona moves between this and that world… And by doing so, she is able to capture things that are seemingly ordinary, automatic and humdrum, and suffuses them with the extraordinary, the awe-inspiring and the hallucinogenic.
“My subject seem ordinary,” says Buenaseda-Chua, describing the gaggle of motley-colored fish, veggies and fruits that occupy her paintings, “but I want to make them beautiful.” This reminds me of psychologist Carl Jung’s reading of Ulysses and how the author James Joyce described everyday items (example: a bar of soap) in narcotic, meanderingly lush prose. It’s an oriental thing: How the ordinary can be a source of transcendence and can be suffused with ineffable significance and the figure or the landscape becomes mud soup. Not for Rona. Not if you use the right paper.
“There is a kind of paper that you can paint over,” she explains. “The thicker ones you can even wash via the faucet and they won’t warp. Watercolor is not that difficult, besides it is a very fluid medium to use. This is what I share with my students.”
Buenaseda-Chua teaches art to students from six to 60 years old at Rona’s Art Studio in Greenhills and another one along Pasay Road, Makati. “I started teaching drawing/painting in our garage. That was in ’89. My very first student is now taking up Medicine. I feel that with teaching, I am able to give my talent and my time to others. I always tell my students, ‘You are supposed to be here to enjoy. If you are forced to take up art, then don’t.’”
Words of wisdom from a woman who started drawing even before she could speak. “Napagkamalan nga akong pipi noon eh,” Rona quips.
Art can also make the world a better place to live in, adds Buenaseda-Chua. “Kapag marami kang problema, punta ka lang sa museum at makakalimutan mo lahat ‘yun. It’s so sad that when you go to the streets, makikita mo lang bare whitewalls.”
Or crappy M MDA “art,” or stupid signs in monolithic orange letters telling people not to make graffiti, or despicable posters announcing to the whole world that this and that project was initiated by this and that politician.
“For me, art can be a means of escaping the drag of everyday life,” she says.
Escape, yes, but not total abandonment. The artist is a devoted wife to businessman Onie Chua, as well as mother to three kids: Ada (21), Onry (20), and Ron (15).
“Priority ko pa rin ang family ko,” shares Rona, who is a member of the Tuesday Group of Filipino artists, which counts Angel Cacnio, Elmer Gernale, Ton Raymundo, Maida Sobretodo, Jun Martinez and Menchu Arandilla, among others as members. “But when two of my kids got into college, I told my husband, ‘siguro naman puwede na ako mag-exhibit.’”
Buenaseda-Chua was able to compile a total of 37 artworks (mostly in watercolor and chalk pastel) and hold her first one-woman show at The Crucible Gallery, on view until Dec. 7.
“Before, I had no time mag-ipon ng paintings. But I resolved to draw everyday, kahit five minutes lang in between household chores, para makatapos ng trabaho.”
Surprisingly, the artist is not at all intimidated with using watercolor, which is considered by many painters as the Attila the Hun of art materials—one mistake, one misguided stroke, one wrong move.
One thing I can say about Buenaseda-Chua is that she isn’t out to shock or intimidate her interviewers—unlike other artists who are as bullying as Torquemada of the Spanish Inquisition. And Rona’s profundity is not packaged with pretense. She speaks softly and sincerely, but her art packs the wallop of a big stick.
“I went through several phases. When I was still in college, I gravitated toward female figures. How come? I just liked the way the woman looks, as simple as that. When I got married and became part of a Chinese family, I studied Chinese heritage and Chinese art. So for a time I was deeply into Oriental painting—flowers, birds and figures.”
Now, Rona is in a still-life phase. Her reason? “ So that people who are on a diet need only to look at my paintings and drink plenty of liquids (laughs).” Hmm… Art as a means to reduce unwanted blubber, Buenaseda-Chua could be on to something.
Kidding aside, one noticeable aspect of Rona’s still lifes is how light suffuses the subjects. “That is because I admire Rembrandt’s use of light in his portraits. I try to incorporate that in my work.” Another influence on the artist’s work is Romain de Tirtoff aka Erte, a Russian graphic designer whose works are peppered with “temptresses with tassels, fur muffs, long trains and coifs.”
But Rona’s art exudes its own elegance: the kind that propels ordinary things—fish, fruits and flowers—into the bowls of infinity.
“All things have an end,” she says. “When you capture things on paper or on canvas, they will be with you forever.”
Part of the proceeds of Buenaseda-Chua’s show will benefit the Studium Theologiae Foundation, which facilitates the further education of diocesan seminarians. The Crucible is located at the 4th Floor, SM Megamall, Building A, Ortigas Center. For inquiries, call 635-6061. Those interested in studying painting can call Rona’s Art Studio at 726-6219 (Greenhills) and 844-1793 (Makati).
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