PAINTER RAFAEL "POPOY" CUSI AND DR. JOSE RIZAL: "PARALLEL" LIVES...

world-renowned painter RAFAEL "POPOY" CUSI: parallelism with Rizal (PHOTO CREDITS: CARLO VIAJERO)

Dr. Jose Rizal: national hero

Popoy Cusi displays his latest work (PHOTO CREDITS: CARLO VIAJERO)

POPOY CUSI IN ONE LAZY AFTERNOON (PHOTO CREDITS: CARLO VIAJERO)

Great artists travel on with loneliness and unending searching for the questions within their hearts and souls...

Great artists sometimes experience parallel lives, as if, both lives shared in one precious moment and accidental traces of time and space...

Great artists rediscover

Great souls unite

And great passions curve the unique transformations of a society and the nation's soul.

And with one living great Filipino painter by the name of Rafael "Popoy" Cusi, some parallelisms transformed in some unique experiences of his travels abroad. A parallel life with Dr. Jose Rizal, the National hero of the Philippines, but also one of the greatest Filipino artists that ever lived.

There were many, according to Mr. Cusi, in those afternoon chats with the great painter. Many incidents, we mean, that paralleled his life with that of Rizal.

But there was one story that impressed a blogger so much. One story that's so provocative, truthful and genuine.

"I was sitting in one garden space of the house we're staying in Heidelberg, Germany, during one of our exhibit tours there", Mr. Popoy Cusi told a blogger. "I was contemplating so much as I sipped my coffee and started thinking what will I be painting next. But somehow, I noticed, one lady just kept on looking at me and gazing at everything I do. I thought, she simply had a crush on me. So I just continued contemplating on that very garden.

"And moments passed, the lady was still there, looking at me on my position and pose", Mr. Cusi continued on saying. "So what I did, I stood up and approached the lady. I even winked at her, what a naughty wink I did. Then I asked her: 'Why are you looking at me?' She answered back at me by saying that where I stayed and sat at the garden was the very same spot that Dr. Jose Rizal sat when he was still living there, too, at a time that he studied at the Heidelberg University. The spot that I sat, that's where Rizal wrote some of his poems. The lady, even though she's young, knew all too well, because she was a fan of Dr. Jose Rizal and she even researched much of his life. I was shocked when I knew it. And she told me, she could almost see Jose Rizal in my self as I sat there outside the garden! Pretty amazing, isn't it?"

And fascinating, indeed. Rizal's soul could somehow transform into the body of a present-day Painter like Mr. Rafael Cusi. And that's what you called PARALLELISM.

Just recently, Kuya Popoy (Rafael Cusi) had an exhibit at the Manila Hotel. A month ago, he was among the judges of a Painting festival in Bulacan province. And he's planning to hold a full one-man exhibit very soon.

"I simply thank God that he's still giving me those plentiful of wonderful ideas and forms in my mind", Rafael Cusi said in a final chat with one blogger that lazy afternoon. "As I lay on my bed, I don't at once fall asleep. Many ideas, creative wonders and all, just kept on pouring inside my mind. At 70 years old, I still have those kicks and turns. And I do thank God for it. He's the One giving me all these kind of precious and creative gifts."

We do agree, Kuya Popoy.





(words by robert manuguid silverio)

MR. RAFAEL "POPOY" CUSI'S PHOTOS BY: MR. CARLO VIAJERO

a rafael cusi sketch