Paz Pelaez: "Certified Public Artist"

CEBU, Philippines - “To see a world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wild flower; to hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour.”

Paz Pelaez quotes from the opening stanzas of William Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence” in her welcome remarks when meeting the members of the media, friends and family who graced her solo art exhibit dubbed “The Works of Paz Pelaez” at the PAGE Center, 2nd Floor Pelaez Building along A.S. Fortuna Street in Mandaue City last June 4, Friday.

The ongoing exhibit features landscapes of New York and sceneries from the Bermudas among 20 paintings generally inspired by her travels to the United States and in the Caribbean with a little touch of the freshness and emotional impact of (Oscar Claude) Monet’s and (Vincent Willem) van Gogh’s treatment of their subjects and colors which vividly depict the life of shadows and light.

“I admire both European Impressionist artists whose works are often subjects of talks of people I met abroad. Adto gyod magtapok ang mga tawo sa ilang mga paintings,” she had observed.

She said it was during those travels that she discovered her passion for painting and which triggered her enrolment into the New Haven Art School in Connecticut, USA.

When asked particularly on her shoreline of Bermuda work, or “Bermuda Beach,” she shared that oftentimes it is mistaken for the coves of Mactan Island. “I do love seascapes and my memories are attached to the places I’ve been to, so I came up with this work on my fascination for the surf and sea of Bermuda,” she said.

As for Dennis Montera, practicing visual artist and an educator at the University of the Philippines Visayas Cebu College, who coached her on articulating spatiality and receiving the light through the dabs and strokes on her canvas while working on “Bermuda Beach,” he said that basically the waves depicted there are the very emotions of Ms. Pelaez. “This speaks of the continuity of life for Ms. Paz despite grieving over the loss of a husband. The color mixing and brushworks on the current express of the very cycle of life – the ebb and flow of tides.”

It was mentioned that because Pelaez admires Monet, his fascination not only for resorts and regattas, but above all for the waters – tranquil on sunny windless days and then wild and stormy at other times – could have rubbed on to Pelaez. So that while working on her way to achieving such “raptures at every brushstroke,” relating to the canvas her journey as a widow, an overcast mood was established on the seascape.

Despite that feeling of nostalgia the “Shoreline of Bermuda” achieved, Pelaez switched on her energy and the vitality of her brushworks in “Money Jars.”

“If you look at it from afar, you would notice that no two objects are the same. This one shows the interplay of objects and the colors of the rainbow,” she said.

Montera taught Pelaez the foundation for mounting a good drawing and painting and introduced her to the more important lessons on perspective, proportion, tonal value relationships, contour drawing, figure drawing, color interrelationships, color mixing, and non-objective composition to improve on her craft.

Among her guests during the opening of the exhibit were US Consul John Domingo who purchased “Village Street in Auvers” (a van Gogh original for his personal collection); art patron Rosebud Sala and businessman Efrain “Jun” Pelaez Jr., a cousin of her late husband, former presidential assistant for the Visayas Rhett Pelaez.

Aside from Montera, Pelaez mentioned of Norwegian artist Karin Jordal being her other mentor who is vital in her shift of career path after going through the “season of the empty nest” when her husband passed away and the children have all grown up and been exploring their places under the sun.

One of her children, during the opening of the exhibit, even teased that his mother leveled up from being a Certified Public Accountant to the “Certified Public Artist” that she has long aspired. ?