DURING THE RECENT sixth Cinemalaya indie film fest at the CCP, I watched more than my share of movies by new and established filmmakers. But, the event that made the festival truly significant for me was not the main film competition and indie showcases, but a side event??Maskarang Totoo,? a retrospective of the late, great actor, Johnny Delgado?s (Juan Feleo), uniquely powerful and idiosyncratic paintings at the CCP?s Pasilyo Guillermo Tolentino.

I?m quite familiar with Johnny?s artworks, but I still found the CCP exhibit a major revelation because it showcased some huge and mordant pieces that he painted only a few years or even months before he passed away.

In uncompromising terms, they vivified the conflicting range and rage of emotions he felt in relation to his grave illness, what it meant to him, and its effect on the loved ones, especially his wife, Laurice, and daughters Ana and Ina, he would perforce have to leave behind.

Absolute truth

Johnny?s emotional honesty in these key pieces mirrors his similar search for and expression of absolute truth as an actor in the course of his long and luminous thespic career in theater, TV and film.

It must have been painful for Johnny to confront his demons and fill canvas after canvas with their brooding and anguished images. But, being the acutely honest artist that he was, life itself was his raging paintbrush and he wouldn?t have had it any other way.

In any case, ?Maskarang Totoo? may sometimes be an emotional roller-coaster ride into a tormented man and artist?s soul, but it still ends up triumphantly on the side of the angels, because it also mirrors Johnny?s deep and abiding faith. Granted, these images are more subtle and recondite than his raging totems of life and death, but they ultimately prevail.

The day we viewed ?Maskarang Totoo,? Charo Santos-Concio and other colleagues of Johnny and Laurice were also appreciative viewers of the exhibit.

We trust that the CCP agrees to extend the exhibition for two more weeks, to enable others to get to know and value Johnny Delgado, not just as an iconic actor, but also as one of our most powerfully ?confessional? visual artists.

Workshop

Readers who are surprised to learn about Johnny?s ?alternative? or ?parallel? artistic persona as a painter might be interested to know that he started painting in 1981, when he was cast as a visual artist in the film, ?Mga Uod at Rosas.? No less that Danny Dalena mentored him, and he later also joined Ray Albano?s art workshop.

Later, he put down his paintbrush to focus on other concerns, but he would periodically pick it up again to paint portraits of loved ones and friends, and to chronicle key moments of his life.

After he learned that he had cancer, Johnny turned to painting again?with a ferocious passion. He did close to a hundred paintings in one year! With his triumphant last hurrah, Johnny Delgado has left us a luminous, passionate, ?death-defying? gift that keeps on giving.