Tuesday, January 08, 2008 Sun Gazing Pastelist By Ritchie Landis Doner Quijano
AT the recently concluded celebration of the Cebu Institute of Medicine’s (CIM) 50th foundation anniversary at the Waterfront Hotel Cebu City Hotel & Casino, I expected the usual crowd of alumna gathered for the reunion.
There were also lectures and talks on modern medicine.
There were also visitors in white garb who seemed to have dropped by after work. In addition, there were booths from different pharmaceutical companies. But what surprised us was a solo exhibition of pastel artworks at the far end of the convention area.
They were brought in from Boston, USA, and were made by a lady doctor who came home for the event. She’s Dr. Maida Antigua, a Cebuana who’s now based in America. She belongs to the CIM batch of 1971. In Boston, she juggles her time between the practice of her profession and her passion.
Art should be liberating to a busy woman. Antigua’s body of works is consistently done in soft pastels as her preferred medium.
The themes, subject and content of her works all revolve around scenes of serenity and tranquil places, lonely pictures devoid of human presence and activity. But there are also a few pieces featuring nature’s bounty. The bulk is of landscapes and seascapes from the many destinations she has visited. It’s like some visual travelogue or a souvenir to document the atmosphere of moments in time.
The painter is particularly drawn to sunrise and sunset. Her interest in showing the effects of varying intensities of light on objects is amusingly played and rendered.
Soft hues and graduated changes in color provide volume and form to her paintings. Whether it’s just sun gazing or sun worship her keen observations of the sun’s nature and power, which she captures in her paintings, make her works very contemplative.
