GUILLERMO “BOYET” ABRENICA paints Bikol and the Naga River. Dr. Paz Verdades M. Santos, or Doods to those who know her well, searches for the river.
Abrenica and Santos are part of a socio-art movement that draws inspiration from a river that defines the city of Naga and, stretched into the sea, a big part of the Bikol region.
Abrenica, it appears, has found his river. It is a body of water seen through prisms of his imagination and ardor and candor. The painter, based on an interview conducted by Doods Santos, recalls how the three paintings, which appear in this piece, were done in three different spots. Two of the paintings—the one in violet and yellow, and the other in red and green—are views of and from the commercial parts of the city, where bridges connect lands and also cover the natural contours of bodies of water. Where the rivers are painted in complementary colors, in lights that are brisk and harsh, the estuaries of this great river turn murky, dark and—from visual inspection—without life.
It takes awhile for Abrenica’s audience to realize that while he foregrounds the river, his riverscape involves always those living by the water. These are people who, despite the wealth of transaction hovering over the river, do not partake of the luxury and comfort of those human engagements. It is, thus, that the yellow and violet, for all its tonal charm, remains a visual vocalize, a sound without words. The stasis and poverty of the cluster of houses are mirrored by the river that does not seem to move. It is not calm but stagnant.
The red—look again, for it is of that notorious fuchsia tint—horizon is what we are drawn into. That color shocks…but not enough to make us forget that there is a river going into it. That is where the caution of this paintings lies: the river does not go into infinity but is blocked into stasis again by a horizon that is unforgivingly strong. On either side are artificial balustrades and riff-raffs. There are no river banks here, just man-made interventions.
Interestingly, Abrenica reserves his somber tones for the painting of the river right where the image of the Virgin of Peñafrancia is brought down from her barge and returned to her shrine in the Basilica.
Doods Santos, a literature scholar and critic, was looking for her own river in a project called “Susog Salog” (literally, “to follow the river”), when she found out about Abrenica’s works. To Doods, Abrenica is the only visual artist who has focused on the river as a topic for his paintings. These images of the river—destitute and dank—are what pushed social activists, creatives, cultural workers and other artists to forge a river of memory. Initiated by Dr. Merlinda Bobis of the University of Woolongong University, the project involves primarily Ateneo de Naga University and Camarines Sur National High School. The activity is a community arts and culture-based project designed to support the Integrated Naga River Revitalization Project.
The Naga River is being revitalized but the people have no distinct and emotional memory of the river. The Susog Salog, through the fusion of the humanities and sciences, of arts and sciences, wants to look into how the ecology is part of the heritage of the communities. Cultural mapping and storytelling from those living near and by the river, especially the senior citizens, form the main tributaries of this tribute to an old river. The paintings of Abrenica depicting what the river has become is now part of Susog Salog,
Abrenica found his rivers and caught them in 18″x 18″ canvases. The movement Susog Salog should find in these works of an artist—and, hopefully, in more artists—appearances of a river that is dying so that it could be remembered and be given life again.
By Tito Genova Valiente / titovaliente@yahoo.com