What personal sacrifice would you make to attain peace and freedom? Beauty queen question? No, it’s a hypothetical question figurative/hyper-realist painter Toti Cerda is throwing to iconic historical figures. He himself answers the question for them through 4”x5” paintings of these figures.
These 12 acrylic paintings include images of—among others—a screaming silent movie actor Charlie Chaplin; Marilyn Monroe wearing a nun’s habit; Bruce Lee as a fair clown making balloons; musician Bob Marley breaking a cigarette to signify his intention to quit smoking; Michael Jackson back to being afro and Black; John Lennon with his ears cut off; rock star-like Mahatma Gandhi clad in shades, singing in front of an old-fashioned mic; Mao Tse Tung as a fortuneteller; José Rizal wearing fatigues; scientist-turned-chef Albert Einstein; artist Salvador Dali with a down-turned moustache; and a guy named JC who has blue eyes, long hair, and a halo—raising the peace sign!
Altro Mondo
In this exhibit, now running at the Altro Mondo Gallery in Greenbelt 5, Cerda departs from paintings of children in watercolor—strong images one has of his earlier work.
“This is different from what I used to do. This is nontraditional rendering,” he says. Although done in acrylic, the effect is grainy and has the feel of a watercolor painting.
Like a butterfly fresh off his cocoon as a caterpillar, Cerda is allowing his wings to flutter after having been safely ensconced under the (protective) wing of Ernie and Araceli “Chichi” Salas of Gallery Genesis, where he was one of the house artists for 13 years, churning out practically three paintings a month, and having exhibited thrice within over a decade.
Cerda will forever be thankful to the Salases, as this long-term engagement afforded him financial stability, and he was able to build a house in a lot he had inherited from his father. It also instilled in him the discipline to paint on a regular basis.
One would find him painting—walang mumog, walang hilamos—as soon as the Cerda household in Binangonan is awake at 4 a.m. Interrupted only by meals lovingly prepared by his wife Annie, and a 30-minute-to-one-hour nap in the afternoon.
As soon as Cerda was free, he asked longtime friend Monette Alvarez, manager of Altro Mondo Gallery, to manage his career as a painter. He wasn’t sure if gallery owner Remigio “Boy” David would warm up to the idea behind “I Would Do Anything for Peace and Freedom,” but the latter did. Thus, this latest exhibit of his coming into fruition.
“I am very grateful to Mr. David for having faith in me, and for giving me this opportunity to have my first exhibit as a freelance artist in his gallery,” Cerda said.
Rizal artist
Cerda was born Rodelio Cerda to a fisherman and a housewife (who sometimes sold fish caught by her husband). As a child, Cerda would sometimes assist his father in catching fish and whenever he would pull the net upwards, he would close his eyes and fervently wish to find art materials there.
So strong was his desire to be an artist that he remembers having written for informal or formal themes in grade school at Subay Elementary School on Talim Island, Cardona: “I want be a painter or artist.”
Once, after being sent off to the neighborhood sari-sari store to buy a bar of laundry soap, the young Toti Cerda returned to his mother not just with a bar of soap but a work of art, sculpted out of what used to be the soap bar. Displeased, his mother sent him back to the store to buy another bar.
Nevertheless, he made it a point to paint on scraps of wood he could scrounge around their environs back when he was in high school.
After graduation from the high-school department of Talim Island Academy, the eldest among seven children waited two years until the Cerda family could pull resources together to be able to send him to college.
Although pining for a Fine Arts degree at UST, Cerda realized that a vocational course on Drafting Technology at the Technological University of the Philippines (TUP) wasn’t such a bad idea.
Cerda couldn’t afford to waste time, so he immediately worked at the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant as a draftsman right after getting his diploma. He turned over 100 percent of his income to his mother every payday and sent his younger sister to school until she graduated from college with a degree in Education. And then the education of his other siblings followed.
He often did charcoal portraits of officemates or their children to add to his regular monthly income.
Kulay sa Tubig champ
In 1987, he became a comics illustrator, but got eased out of the job for union organizing. He then approached Chichi Salas and showed her two watercolor paintings, and the rest is history: From the years 1997-1999, Cerda bagged the grand prize at Gallery Genesis’ Kulay sa Tubig Annual Watercolor Competition. Years after being elevated to the Hall of Fame, Cerda emerged as the hall of famer of the competition’s Hall of Famers; the best of the best and the cream of the crop!
He is in such distinguished company as Egai Fernandez, Manuel Baldemor, Renato Habulan, Araceli Dans and Adi Baens Santos; and is being collected by the likes of Robert Kwan of Chowking.
He has since then reaped awards from the National Commission for the Culture and the Arts (NCCA), Art Association of the Philippines (AAP), Government Service and Insurance System (GSIS) and the Philippine Art Awards of Philip Morris.
Cerda currently lives in the ancestral compound in Binangonan, Rizal, with his wife Annie and children Troy, 25; Kevin, 20; Elena, 19; and youngest Andrew, 12.
He hangs out with the members of the Linang Artist Community, such as Lester “Pogi” Rodriguez, Cris Tuazon, Mannix Arago, RJ Arago, Tony Arangoncillo, Kevin Cerda, Ronson Culibrina and Glenn Quisquino.
He says he wants to do an antiwar series and exhibit in Singapore. It seems Toti Cerda has just begun.
