By WINNIE VELASQUEZ
FOR more than forty years now, Betsy Westendorp has rendered huge canvases of lush blooms, exotic flora painted in situ in the vibrant hues of the seasons – nature in full splendour but also at its most harsh. She has done portraits of royalty, presidents, captains of industry – all larger than life.
Now in her eighth decade, Betsy continues to paint, day after day, in her studio high up in one of Makati’s tony addresses, overlooking a city she has taken to heart. This time, she has assembled a body of works that is a departure from what art lovers have seen in previous exhibits. They are being presented in “Portraits of An Artist: Betsy Westendorp” that will be on view from January 17 to February 10 at Manila Contemporary at Whitespace 2314, Chino Roces Avenue ext., Makati City.
“When I met Valentine Willie (Manila Contemporary’s main man) at the exhibit I held at the Gateway in Cubao a few years ago, he broached the idea of showcasing my works at his huge gallery. I couldn’t see why. My works are not in the genre that Manila Contemporary is known for. He did convince me but this time I was certain my landscapes and floral paintings or even the portraits would not be the reason for or the focus of the show,” Betsy said.
Originally scheduled in mid-2012, this exhibit had to be put on hold when Betsy’s sister died. Back in Manila from Madrid, she put together the huge canvases towards the end of the year. They consist mainly of atmosferografias. A term that is hardly in use today, these are skyscapes – Betsy’s meditations with light and color, on the sunsets and sunrises, the changing of the seasons as reflected in skies that turn from a golden yellow to orange, from cerulean to dark ominous grey bands, and to golden sunrise at the break of day.
These are the seasons in the life of this beautiful Madrileňa who came to the Philippines in 1951 as the young bride of the late Filipino-Spanish businessman Antonio Brias. While making a home in Manila (where she stayed for the next 20 years) with her husband and three girls, Betsy continued to paint. When the family returned to Spain, Manila was always a vivid picture in her mind. She shuttled between Manila and Madrid in the next few years finally deciding to be based here and only making trips back to visit family in the Spanish capital. After her husband’s death and with her children raising families of their own, Betsy made Manila home. She works in her studio, a solitary figure turning huge, empty canvases into works that reflect her emotions, her state of mind on a given day as she ponders the vast skyline before her.
Creating the skyscapes on exhibit, Betsy relied mainly on memory, the vivid panorama before her frozen in pictures that stayed in her mind long after the days have passed. Early in their marriage, Betsy and Tony Brias liked to take long drives through Roxas blvd. (then Dewey) and stop to view the spectacular sunset. Dewey blvd. then was a long coastline that stretched all the way from Pasay to Cavite. It was a vista unmarred by the ghastly encroachments that we see today.
After her husband died, she maintained an apartment and studio in an elegant condo fronting Manila Bay. “The view from my window was magnificent,” she recalled. But in the next few years, aggressive reclamation pushed the shore away and marred this view. It was time to move.
Providentially, a friend told her that the place in Makati where she lived briefly had become available. This is where Betsy has been painting in the last few years. In her studio on the 24th floor, she looks far into the horizon, watches the clouds drift by as a tableau of light and color unfold before her eyes. These are the subjects of the works she exhibits now.
They are a departure from what the public associate her with. The images (in the regal portraits), the homage to the vastness of nature (in those huge canvases pulsating with life), take on a somber, contemplative meaning as the artist, ever mindful of the limitless power and the endless vision of the heavens before her, paints through the changing light of day, works that critics have described as “abstract dreams playing with light.”
As art historian-critic Cid Reyes said in the exhibit’s monograph: “Even in the autumn of her years, the indefatigable Betsy Westendorp remains exuberant in her art making, with each show ever the promise of another spring. For an artist of such imagination, the sky is the limit.”
(The atmosferografias will occupy the Main Gallery of Manila Contemporary. To make a complete presentation of the art of Betsy Westendorp, Architect Ramon Antonio has designed a special room within the main gallery so visitors can see how collectors “live” with Betsy’s art. Some of Betsy’s small works, portraits in her collection and documentation of her work are also included. Also part of the exhibit, mounted in collaboration with Galleria Duemila, is Betsy’s own self-portrait she completed late last year.)