Visual artists and husband-and-wife Angelito (Lito) Antonio and Norma Belleza (Photo by PINGGOT ZULUETA)

Visual artists and husband-and-wife Angelito (Lito) Antonio and Norma Belleza are amazingly still at it. Even after so many years of being in the Philippine art scene, the two have yet to stop producing their signature brightly colored and optimistic works that delight and tickle a viewer’s fancy. Although both have physically aged, they seemingly have maintained that fiery passion of their youth to faithfully mix paints and wield a brush. But exhibits of their works are rarely mounted and seen in galleries and museums nowadays, only because their collectors and patrons go directly to their old-world and cozy abode in Antipolo to buy their art—even if some of them aren’t finished yet.

Life however wasn’t this comfortable for Mang Lito and Tita Norma back in the day. They, too, have struggled a lot before reaching the generous state they are in now. There were stark days when Mang Lito could only afford cheap paint and had to work tirelessly in a cramped and airless space that caused him to develop bad sinuses. Tita Norma, meanwhile, had to content herself with painting in the kitchen of their two-bedroom apartment in Lantana, Cubao. There, they would stay for 16 years before moving to their current household.

With three kids (Marcel, Emannuel, and Fatima) to feed, Mang Lito opted to teach color, composition, and design classes at his alma mater, University of Santo Tomas, to get regular income. In retrospect, Mang Lito frankly says that teaching for almost 14 years was wasted time for him, if only because he didn’t get to do much of his studio work. But Mang Lito quickly counters that he probably shouldn’t put it that way, as he admits it was indeed rewarding for him to have exchanged a plethora of fresh ideas with his students. Sounding very eloquent, effortlessly funny, and intellectual at the same time, Mang Lito seemed to have been a great hit with his classes. What memorable stories and vivid anecdotes he had probably shared with them!

Stories of his playful adventures with fellow artists Roberto Chabet and the late Lee Aguinaldo were fascinating to hear. Such that he and Chabet would drive to Aguinaldo’s house in Manila to check out his atelier and eventually critique his works unabashedly. Once there, Mang Lito remembers how Aguinaldo would bring out his tape deck and play jazz. And albeit Mang Lito’s prejudice against the music, he would listen to it. Later, he would realize how superior his friend’s taste had been.

In between sharing accounts from his life and Tita Norma’s, the bespectacled and jovial Mang Lito spruces up our conversation with bits of anecdotes from other artists—how Pablo Picasso at 90 wanted to paint like a child, how Alberto Giacometti liked his workplace messy and chaotic, how Barnett Newman used to stare at his painting for hours at a time, and how Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oe specifically wrote literature for his brain-damaged child, among many others.

It is easy to tell that Mang Lito thrives in narratives. His art is, in fact, a pictorial language that tells of tales inspired by the Filipino way of life. His folk works usually portray a mother cradling her child, a lone farmer with a rooster in his arms, scenes of cockfights, ice cream peddlers, and balloon vendors, to name a few. Rendered in an attention-grabbing and stylized color orchestration, Mang Lito’s figurative and cubist-inspired pieces easily became everyone’s cup of tea. Central to his art is both the richness and simplicity of Filipino culture.

But the artist didn’t paint recognizable subjects and motifs at the onset of his career. Growing up, Mang Lito preferred abstraction over other genres. His shift from abstracts to more popular themes was brought about by his choice to be a good father and to provide adequately for his family. “I am not a hypocrite. I am not afraid to make money,” he says. “Anything that could put bread on the table, I would do it.”

But this is not to say that Mang Lito had fully succumbed to the dictates of the buying public. So his artistic spirit and original vision could survive also, Mang Lito decided to add unpredictable and capricious elements in his paintings. Breaking compositional rules and color theories, the artist went to paint something out of kilter, out of whack—“a child sleeping in mid-air, a pink-colored cat, a man with a red face.” That’s Mang Lito being audacious and true to his aesthetic sensibilities! Mang Lito points out, “I used to tell my students to break the rules. I tell them that the first thing they have to learn after getting out of art school is to unlearn all the things they have learned. Tirahin nila nang tirahin so they could start anew.”

While painting his “prose” pieces, Mang Lito also busied himself and let his creative juices do their magic by creating a suite of works, which he describes as “poetry.” These 40-something paintings, which Mang Lito had already started way back in 1971 but never finished, are very much different from his characteristic painterly style and subject matter. Instead, these artworks explore oddities and puzzling visual tongues, done in a very gestural and childlike manner using popping hues. Mang Lito works hard on them with much enthusiasm of a young painter just starting out and learning the ropes of the art circuit, applying and changing layers upon layers of color or lines depending on his mood and taste.

“Unwilling pa akong ilabas ‘yan sa publiko at ibenta. Masaya lang akong gawin sila para sa sarili ko,”shares Mang Lito.“Sabi nga ni Alfred Yuson, obligasyon ko bilang pintor na ilabas sila sa publiko. Ang sabi ko naman, wala pa kasing tapos ni isa sa kanila. Pakiramdam ko dalawang lifetimes ko pa bago matapos ‘yan. Bago kasi ako nang bago. Today it’s green, tomorrow it might be yellow or it might be brown or blue. My process takes time. If I get to see that kind of rightness, then probably I’d be able to share them with others. Sana lang matapos ko ‘yung mga piyesa na hindi ko ibinebenta.”

If Mang Lito is naturally articulate, Tita Norma is the total opposite. She is shy and hardly keeps up a lengthy conversation. One can sense anxiety when she smiles. It is interesting to note that the face behind one of the darkest oeuvres during their time is a short lady—seemingly incapable of getting angry, appearing vulnerable to any danger that would come her way, and feeble to churn out powerful yet somber pieces.

Tita Norma’s artistic progression is a voyage “from grief to freedom.” Noted art critic and essayist Leo Benesa described the artist’s journey as “dark visions of Rouault to the bright ones of Chagall, as if the artist had finally overcome her private Passion and emerged into her Easter, as from night to daylight.”

From dark and troubled subject matters caused by her personal struggles and experiences, Tita Norma valiantly moved to her pietistic themes. These are scenes “rooted in a mainly agricultural milieu.” Now, her canvases are created with a rich palette “suggestive of the intensities of tropical color” and are filled with everyday pictures and subjects she sees from, say, her daily trips to the market or from strolls around her province of La Union. As a result, Tita Norma’s opuses come out as pure and very real. Her inspiration comes from everything that surrounds her and from things that directly affect her.

“One day, I went to Norma’s province, and I saw how the people looked, and I said, ‘why, they really look like the people in Norma’s paintings,’” Mang Lito tells. “I said, ‘these are the people of Norma Belleza!’ Her vision is so pure. ‘Yung kulay ng mga damit, ganun na ganun sa mga piyesa niya…’yung mga daliri, ganun din. Hindi siya sinungaling sa art niya. Your Tita Norma would never paint anything dishonestly!”

Mang Lito adds that his wife is a very natural artist. “Kung malungkot o masaya siya, lalabas ‘yun sa piyesa niya,” he says. “Mas marunong pa akong mambola eh.Visually, I am more daring and creative,” he quips. But despite this disparity in vision, both painters have successfully managed to mesh their creative differences and gain a steady number of following and have fashioned a lovely union that can be the envy of many.

Indeed, the coupling of two of the country’s finest expressionists, one dubbed “the fastest painter in town” (legend has it that Mang Lito can finish a 36” x 50” painting even before a casserole of spaghetti cooks) and the other, the quiet lady who “celebrates the brightness of the drab business of living from day to day,” is just pure and beautiful—very much like their art.