Nature’s Daughter
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Cecille Artillaga loves painting plants and flowers. (Photo courtesy of Cecille Artillaga)
Artillaga was born and raised in then-rural Angono. “My friends and I played in the field, rolled around in the hay, and flew kites in the summer,” she remembers. “When the rainy season came, we made paper boats or boats made of old slippers that we floated in the then-clean canal.” She and her friends usually ended up playing around lunchtime. They took a nap at noon, after which they continued to play. “I must have experienced almost every game growing up,” she adds.
Her childhood’s bucolic surroundings contributed to her love of nature, which became the subject of her art. In grade school, she often ran out of pad paper because she liked to draw rice fields, huts, and things she saw around her.
Artillaga’s teachers noticed her passion for art and often made her draw whenever they needed visual aids. In high school, she was usually pulled out of class to do bulletin boards and she always decorated the stage whenever there was a program.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, majoring in painting, from the University of Santo Tomas in Manila in 1991.
After graduation, Artillaga became an art teacher at St. Martin Montessori School in Angono and also became the school’s registrar. While at the academy from 1991 to 2007, she inspired and nurtured numerous talents. She left the school to engage in business, establishing a restaurant and later, a printing shop.
Her heart and passion, however, have always been painting. After her children finished college, she returned to her first love and became a full-time visual artist. She joined the Angono Ateliers Association, the oldest art organization in Angono, and is now the organization’s secretary. On the side, she is also good at sculpture, sewing clothes, and designing costumes. Painting, however, occupies most of her time.
Yellow Bougainvillea, 2024, mixed media, 16 inches x 20 inches (Photo courtesy of Cecille Artillaga)
The common denominator of Artillaga’s paintings is the hugeness of her subjects. This is apparent in Yellow Bougainvillea (2024), where she focuses on a popular easy-to-care ornamental plant in the Philippines: the bougainvillea. Native to South America, the flower has thorny vines, bushes, and trees. But it is the bougainvillea’s myriad array of colors that makes it extra special. There are hybrid varieties called “rainbow” bougainvillea with two-color flowers. In painting the yellow bougainvillea, Artillaga used light gold for yellow to contrast with the Aztec-gold background. However, the camera captured the gold as white. As such, portions of the painting look white in the photo, giving the bougainvillea a dramatic appearance.
Nicole Liwanag Reyes (left) is a recipient of Nicole’s Sunflower, 2024, mixed media, 24 inches x 24 inches (Photo courtesy of Cecille Artillaga)
In Nicole’s Sunflower (2024), Artillaga focuses on a flower that signifies hope, warmth, and positivity. It was specially made for Nicole Liwanag Reyes, an architecture student at the University of the Philippines (UP) in Quezon City. On the UP campus, sunflowers are abundant at the amphitheater, where commencement exercises are held. Reyes sums up her experience with the painting: “Sunflower has a special place in my heart because it has become UP’s symbol … In the painting, a single sunflower in full bloom is staring at me from the center of the canvas. The seed, which is the sunflower’s center, looks like the sun, with petals seemingly revolving around it. When I look at it, it calls me. It is my sunflower after all. Perfectly, the painting is textured as well. I can’t help but reach out and touch it!”
Balimbing Blooms, 2024, mixed media, 16 inches x 20 inches (Photo courtesy of Cecille Artillaga)
Artillaga’s artistic genius is evident in her humorous, if not teasing, painting Balimbing Blooms (2024). She features blooming lilac flowers with purple streaks. If she does not tell you the title of the painting, you would never guess that they are flowers of a balimbing (a.k.a., carambola or star fruit), which is a waxy and orange-yellow fruit. Balimbing has a star-like appearance when sliced across. Due to its multiformity, balimbing in the Philippines also refers to a turncoat, specifically a politician who changes allegiance for his or her interests.
Cecile Artillaga makes the ordinary special. She has the gift of magnifying and elevating nature for everybody to wonder and enjoy. Interactions with her paintings continue to be relived and treasured—long after they have been experienced.
Cecille Artillaga can be reached at cecille_artillaga@yahoo.com. The author wishes to thank Dexjordi Lyle Sison for his assistance in the photos.
Leodivico Padua Masuli writes from Quezon City, where he is a security officer. His imagination and creativity were nurtured while growing up on a farm in Libertad, Abulug, Cagayan. He loves nature and enjoys watching documentaries.
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