Reluctant painter embraces his talent
It’s 2 a.m. in Warrington, where Darby Vincent Alcoseba has been staying since the holidays. He spends winters there with his wife, who is a nurse in the United Kingdom. He usually leaves by June (although a bit earlier this year) to go back to his Tagaytay studio. Their home is quiet while he works in solitude during the wee hours of the morning.
“I’m used to it,” the Cebuano painter tells Lifestyle in Filipino during a lengthy videoconference as he sits in front of a new painting of Trafalgar Square he’s been working on.
The artworks he exhibited during the recent ManilArt, under the sponsorship of Tagaytay Mayor Bambol Tolentino, are breathtakingly beautiful, as though a handful of European classics have somehow found their way to modern-day Taguig.
Some of his pieces are eye-catchingly huge because he believes big pieces tend to be memorable, mentioning Juan Luna’s “Spoliarium” as an example. In fact, Alcoseba dreams of someday being among the likes of Luna, whose art is still being preserved due to its significance.
For Alcoseba, success in art equates to recognition. With recognition often comes marketability, which for him feels like a reward. For now, he feels grateful for Tolentino’s support. “I feel blessed to have someone believe in my art so much that they sponsored my show in ManilArt, which could never have happened before.”
In his two years participating in ManilArt, Alcoseba said he noticed that the usual visitors tend to be young. “When the kids went there, they got so curious and kept asking questions. I realized that I had the right idea to paint big so that I can motivate them to see these places.”
He credits his wife’s wanderlust (even before their recent wedding) for bringing him to various places and making him see all the stunning scenery. If it had been up to him, he says he would’ve been happy to just stay in Cebu. But their trip to Coron made him more willing to compromise. “It was wonderful to paint,” he admits.
Monet’s garden
Now he okays all his wife’s trips, so long as he gets to paint the views there. From Palawan, the couple has also visited Singapore, Thailand, the United States, and the United Kingdom, among other countries.
During his latest trip to France, the artist, who has also been taking up short courses at the Art Academy London, went to Claude Monet’s garden in Giverny, Normandy. “You’ll be shocked when you get inside; every angle could be a painting,” he says.
Some of his other artist friends have said that if he painted the water lilies in Monet’s pond, that wouldn’t be him. He’d only be simulating the famed impressionist artist, they said. But Alcoseba didn’t care. “I just wanted to paint them.”
There was a time when such utterances would never have passed this fine artist’s lips. Despite his lineage and talent, he never really wanted to be a painter when he was younger.
Born to a family of renowned Cebuano artists, the 41-year-old stubbornly refused to follow in his father’s footsteps growing up. As brilliant as he believes watercolorist Tony Alcoseba to be, he ultimately didn’t want the instability that seemed to come with being a full-time painter. “There’s no money in it, you might go hungry,” he recalls thinking, “not to mention the politics.” In fact, if he ever has children, he says he won’t encourage them to become artists.
“There’s so much uncertainty with painting. You might be able to sell a piece and earn money, but that might just be a once-in-a-blue-moon thing. This is real talk,” he says. “When you have a regular job, you have a consistent source of income.”
While he joined various art contests throughout his life to fund his education and other expenses (he won the grand prize for the Art Petron painting competition twice, and in 2013, finally earned the top award at the Metrobank Art and Design Excellence national competition in painting after several attempts), he couldn’t help but worry about their family and his younger siblings, as the eldest of seven children.
Sign
He picked a course in college that he deemed was furthest from art: computer engineering. He considered architecture, but the drawing element turned him off.
However, no matter how far he strayed, Alcoseba couldn’t seem to escape his fate. Something seemed to keep pulling him back. When he got into computer engineering, he didn’t have a computer. It was his earnings from selling a painting that allowed him to buy one.
While finally working as a computer engineer, his colleagues found out he could paint, and insisted he try graphic design. He later applied for a graphic designer position in Dubai but was turned down even though he was qualified because the employer couldn’t believe a computer engineer could be adept at graphics.
If he had taken up fine arts or architecture, he muses, he might have gotten accepted and his life would have taken a different trajectory. His muddled visions of a stable future brought him to church to pray to the Sto. Niño (infant Jesus) for guidance one fine day in 2009.
“I asked for a sign to show me what I should do for the rest of my life,” he narrated. He was carrying a painting he was about to enter into yet another contest. In his prayer, he hastily added not to make him win just for the sake of giving him a sign. “Let the rightful winner win.”
At the time, he was still hoping to get the graphic design post. But he promised to follow His direction. “‘If You want me to be an artist or you want me to work, You’re the only one who can answer that. All I want is to have a happy future. Just give me a sign and I will push through with it,’” he recalls praying.
After two weeks, he learned he had won the grand prize. “I wasn’t able to speak. My tears ran down my face and I immediately went back to the church. I was so emotional. I said, ‘You really gave me this sign. Thank You. Bahala na, ready na ako magutom.’”
