Qube Gallery’s current exhibit “Honi ug Banika (Music and Nature)” features the works of Celso and Fe Madrid Pepito.
Celso is well known for his cubism style in acrylic on canvas, and the works he has on exhibit do not disappoint. The subjects, though, are not his usual serious family values-oriented works. All the paintings feature people playing or carrying a music instrument—guitar, piano, harmonica, violin, drums, flute— hence the exhibit’s “Honi.”
Fe’s works are done in oil and her style is traditional realism. Not an arts graduate but a doctor of optometry, she recounts that she worked only for six months as an optometrist before deciding to become a full-time housewife and partner of her husband’s art gallery then in P. del Rosario St., Cebu City.
She said she had always loved the arts and while working part time during her high school years, she got to meet Cebu’s top art figures as she was put in charge of art supplies in Lynn Marketing (now no longer existing). In this venue, she met and got to know Martino Abellana, Julian Jumalon, Virgilio “Dodong” Daclan, Godo Mendoza, Sofronio Y. Mendoza (SYM), Dodong Cagigas, Tony Alcoseba and, of course, her husband-to-be, Celso.
It was when Celso left for an exhibit in the United States and she was left behind that she decided to try painting something herself. She had always loved the arts and enjoyed her grade school art classes. She started with pastel. With constant practice, she was able finally to come up with paintings worthwhile exhibiting. With her first participation in a group exhibit in 1994 at Mayflower Hotel, she felt she had “arrived.”
Since then, she would participate in other group exhibits and found herself shifting to oil. Initially using the oil paints Celso no longer had use for as he began to paint mostly in acrylic. These days, she loves to paint nature themes—hence the “banika” in the exhibit title—particularly river water meandering through partly tree-sheltered rocks.
The exhibit is ongoing up to Aug. 15. It can also be seen online at www.qubegallery.ph.