"The mastery with which Rafael Cusi uses his chosen medium,
makes him an artist of uncanny genius."

Rafael Arenillo Cusi is a watercolor painter. He has been so for 43 years, first in Mindoro and now in Manila.

Cusi is a master of this most difficult of artistic media. Like making love with one you cherish, his processes are intense and explosive. His preparation for commencing a new painting is an integral part of the process: a cleansing of the body and mind of all thoughts which might distract his intense focus upon the canvas and what his inspired intellect wishes to next create.

Conventional wisdom within the art world identifies watercolor as a minor medium, placing only sculpture and oil painting as the exhaled majors. One quickly learns, however, that Cusi’s preparation, care and concern for the durability of his art surely equals and sometimes overleaps most of those in oils. His carefully chosen primary color materials are more rare and expensive than oils; his archival-standard acid-free canvas is meticulously mounted wet, and is so strong that will bend sturdy plywood, if not applied properly.

Watercolor is an unforgiving medium. One must work with a plan, an inspiration from the outset. One has a clean white canvas once only: there is only one opportunity to achieve the brilliance of a rich primary color stroked over that pure white canvas.

The manner in which Cusi treats the virginity of the canvas is there for all to see, and the discriminating to admire and applaud.

Rafael Cusi was born in Bongabon, Oriental Mindoro on October 24, 1950, to Lucas Cusi and Josefa Arenillo. Like many aspiring artists in the Philippines, as a young man he applied his talents to street art: sign painting, public murals and billboard scene painting. With the help of a Peace Corps volunteer, he achieved his Bachelors of Art in Painting from PWU and has been a professional artist since graduating.

He has exhibited his work throughout the Philippines, and in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the USA, Japan, England, Blegium and Spain. His paintings are prized by his contemporaries, and are found in the offices and homes of the most discriminating international collectors.

 

—Larry Bortles
Art critic
Harvard University