It was the Beatles that did it. The impact of the quartet’s avant-garde music at that time was too palpable for anyone not to notice; the world has never seen anything like it. Theirs was cult-like. In England and elsewhere, the most famous musical men on the planet were always met with frenzied screams and sighs of admiration. In the Philippines, artists started following their footsteps and took impetus from the rich and powerful imagery of their songs. The young Benjie Cabangis was one of them.

The abstract artist says that the band’s White Album influenced him a lot. Released in 1968, the album cover was unlike any other. It was white and minimalist and had been stripped off of adornments and color that their previous albums boasted. Songs from the record were mostly inspired by the group’s sojourn in India to study meditation under the celebrated Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Naturally, the songs were moving and possess simple guitar riffs and lilting melodies that captivated the hearts of many.

Cabangis’s oeuvre follows suit. (He also meditates first before proceeding to paint and practices transcendental meditation which Yogi founded. The artist attests that meditation helps him to clear his mind and focus on a painting). His current abstractions, collectively known as ‘Scattered Skies and Seas,’ may be a bit unobtrusive aesthetic-wise but the artist’s statement about it is no less than a powerful and ominous reminder to us all of nature’s wrath and provoking complexities.

Now more than ever, Cabangis presents works motivated from the recent calamities we had suffered.

As a result, the artist-educator’s pieces come across as atmospheric disturbances seen often in satellite feeds from the weather station but done in a more precise yet unanticipated and artistic manner.

Like checkerboards, Cabangis’ paintings allude to “roiling atmospheres and storm-tossed oceans” rendered in cubes and grids that, according to art critic Reuben Ramas Cañete, “segment and bracket off spaces with minimalist precision.”  Using hues such as black, blue, gray, and hints of red and orange, Cabangis’ paintings explode from the inside out and seemingly engulf viewers into an eye of the storm. “One is almost tempted to view these abstractions as well as experience them,” Cañete writes.

The artist says he opted to make visually loud works as he can’t seem to shake off his pressing concerns about the country’s volatile weather nowadays.

“Masyado akong naapektuhan eh kaya di ako makagawa ng trabahong tahimik. Naisip ko na kailangang magkaroon na siguro ng purpose ‘yung trabaho ko in a sense na maging reminder siya sa mga nangyayari sa atin,” Cabangis shares. “Meron nga akong dalawang work titled ‘Forecast.’ Meron siyang mga pattern, so iniisip ko parang tuloy na tuloy na itong mga nangyayari sa atin.

Napaka-erratic na kasi ng nangyayari sa atin eh. Pero ayoko namang magkatotoo sila,” he adds.

Before though, Cabangis says that his abstract pieces tend to be more linear and formalistic, focusing more on composition, line, and space. Of late, central to the art-making of Cabangis are nature and representational images and making indirect references to them — which is but a natural take-off point of an oriental artwork, since Asian artists have always fashioned a fundamental and primal connection between nature and art.

Cañete poses this premise with regard to Cabangis’ impulsion towards nature, “the Asian tradition of landscape painting necessitates not a literalist (that is to say, perspectival and naturalistic) interpretation of land, sea, and sky, but a summation of its effects and manifestations upon the human observer, who translates the concept of all compositional elements into an integral, united form.

….[he] has the ability to transform abstract space from a mere surface to a frozen mirage, an alchemical process introduced through sly visual clues based on everyday life.”

True enough, viewers will find recognizable and cohesive images in the veteran artist’s paintings despite the fact that Cabangis makes use of a very serendipitous style. “Nag-uumpisa ako from scratch. There are times that I just play around with my medium. It’s acrylic so it’s water-based,” Cabangis reveals. “Minsan may nagagawa akong accidental formation sa paglalaro ko sa medium.

Saka ko siya ngayon iisipan ng configuration. Kapag water-based kasi ‘yung media, ang dami mong nagagawang organic forms and then from them I can see, say, cloud-like images among others.”

At times, Cabangis mentions that he already has ideas and plans of how to conquer his blank canvases. But most of the time the artist sticks to his accidental creative approach because it renders more spirit and dynamism in his opuses — making them pulsate with life and raw energy the same way as formidable nature proverbially breathes in space and time.

Gestural spatters and splashes of color are apparent in Cabangis’s pieces; drips of paint also find home in his canvases and brushstrokes that do away with formalism see light in his works. It is obvious — Cabangis enjoys abstraction the most.

“Mas malawak ‘yung expression saka mas malalim ‘yung creative process sa abstract,” Cabangis says. “Maraming possibilities na pwedeng puntahan sa abstract.” He also likens the genre to music.

“Parang instrumental music din ang abstraction. When you listen to an instrumental, you start to pay attention to rhythm and melody, right? Sa abstract painting naman, napapanood mo ‘yung progression and movement of lines and of color. It speaks to the viewers and affect them like music does,” he tells.

When asked of his advice to aspiring artists, Cabangis answers, “Gawa lang nang gawa.” True. Because there is no better time to be an artist than now.

“Scattered Skies and Seas: New Paintings and Collages by Benjie Cabangis” opens on November 10 at the Paseo Gallery, located at 4/L SM Megamall A, Mandaluyong City. It will run until November 23. For more details, contact 706-5514 or visit www.paseogallery.com.