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Anghel de Cuyacuy

Anghel de Cuyacuy.jpg

                  (the idiosyncratic icon of Hofileña & Custodio’s

                  Hocus & Quadricula paintings*)

 

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Only in a state of complete rest

Can the Angel of Swing-Legs

Let the mind walk.

 

Anghel de Cuyacuy, or in Rizal’s

Orthography, twice infixed

With the Katipunan’s K,

 

Must sit on top of a fence,

Or perch on a parapet so his 

Feet could walk on air. 

 

Under the shade and shield

Of his tough gourd hat,

The Ilocano Tabungao,

 

He must see through

What goes before him, 

Divine as if with supreme 

Indifference the contradictions 

& lies, the impositions

Of Castilian king & friar God.

 

His mind open and ambulant,

Informed by the Noli and Fili,

Inspired by the Kartilya and

 

Ang Dapat Malaman ng mga Tagalog,

He would spread his seraphic wings

And broadcast the seeds 

 

Of discernment and dissent

Among the hungry 

For knowledge and wisdom,

 

As he swung his feet, and

Walked on air, into the quadricula,

Not of colonization, 

 

But the multiple mazes of freedom.

 

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20 January 2020

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* “HOCUS” and its sequel "Quadricula" are a distinctive art show consisting of paintings conceived by two persons, Saul Hofileña Jr. and Guy Custodio, “a historian who does not paint and a painter wary of history,” in the words of the curator, writer and historian Gemma Cruz Araneta. The one first dreamed up the ideas while the other executed them on canvas. Their productive collaboration became such that at certain points they could almost work independently or they fed each other’s ideas even by email. The title of the show is a combination of the first syllables of their surnames.

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