MANILA, Philippines - Gilda Cordero-Fernando, mother hen of writers, artists, fashionistas and bohemians, has proven herself to be a jane-of-all-trades in the arts.

Through the years she has parlayed her considerable talent in literature (essay, short story, review, journal, reportage, even verse); book-publishing (coffee-table tomes); theater (script, concept, design); and the visual arts (painting, sketching). On top of that, she dabbles in the supernatural (okay, the mystical).

Declaring Nick Joaquin as her supreme Filipino artist, Cordero-Fernando naturally shows in her works the narrative bent and verbal flair of the late National Artist for Literature. (Come to think of it, why hasn?t anyone thought of nominating her herself for that honor?)

These literary elements manifest themselves even in her artworks. The storytelling can be apprehended in the illustrative quality of her paintings and sketches, while the flair for words has metamorphosed into an expressionistic use of colors.

Of visual artists, she has avowed fealty to Danny Dalena, Onib Olmedo and Roberto Feleo, the first two our leading figurative expressionists and her mentors at one time or another?and that also shows in her manipulation of line and color.

Quirky composition

A lifetime?s worth of Cordero-Fernando?s foray into the visual arts was recently displayed in ?Senior Moment,? 51 pieces in watercolor on paper, in Le Soufflé at Amorsolo Square, Amorsolo Drive, Rockwell Center, Makati City.

Billed as ?an exhibit of death-defying paintings,? probably alluding to the fact that she is a late bloomer in painting, the show has for title a direct reference to the artist?s age.

?I am now 77,? she says, ?and might not be able to come up with so much stuff in a single show again.?

Here are her characteristic amusing imagery and quirky composition, flowing lines and repeat forms, primary and secondary colors that are pure, flat and bright. The witty littérateur consistently manifests in both imagery and title. This is the epitome of illustration art, blending naïf and figurative expressionism.

Cordero-Fernando describes her show as ?paintings of zodiac animals, people, otherworldly creatures and some protest stuff.? Thus the artworks are subdivided in several series of various interests and concerns.

?Animalia? comprises zodiac animals adorned with repeat lines and patches of color. Typical are ?Horsie,? ?Masquerade Bull,? ?Dragons and Other Denizens of the Mind??so replete with repeat forms they?ve become abstracted and the viewer can hardly see the beasts from the forest of overdecoration.

Fable characters

Not all are zodiac animals, though, as there are also giraffes, eagles and what look like hybrid frogs in the series called ?Animal Rights.? With a tale animating each piece, these could very well be characters from fables.

They embody the ?protest stuff,? chiefly women?s issues, both domestic and societal, local and global. But they?re rendered with urbane wit, in playful forms and Day-Glo colors?the visual equivalent of a gentle ribbing?so that what?s supposed to be scathing becomes smile-inducing, and bile turns into honey.

?The Right to One?s Body? shows a couple that seems to be cuddling, and to complete the narrative the artist has appended a subtitle: ?Eleven Kids and No Male to Carry My Name??

The male, rendered in a sickly green, is sharp-eyed and fire-snorting, while the female, in a healthy reddish glow, looks abject. But more disturbing, the two are of different species, she a sow and he a hybrid of horse, lion and dragon.

The dominating male is playfully depicted in pieces such as ?Patriarchy,? subtitled ?The Last Word on All Matters?; and ?Verbal Abuse,? subtitled ?This House Can Only Have One Master!?

Meanwhile, the submissive female is achingly portrayed in pieces such as ?Double Burden,? subtitled ?Breadwinner and Housekeeper, too!?; and ?Emotional Battery,? subtitled ?Unappreciated Mrs. Dog Goes Home to Mama,? in which domestic violence haunts the imagery.

Charming portraiture

?Domestics to Saudi,? subtitled ?The Right to Decent Wages,? has a row of elegantly poised, brightly colored giraffes wearing the traditional veils of Middle Eastern women. This would have been hilarious if it were not frightening.

The series called ?Humanoids? swarms with worldly and otherworldly creatures from fairies to germs, or what the artist calls ?beings and alternates.? People she knows are herewith immortalized in charming portraiture, such as ?A Portrait: Baba, Sylvia and Igorot Yaya.?

?Ice-Cream Dreams,? in which the craving is confused with the sense of smell, appears to be a portrait of another artist, sculptor Julie Lluch (but we could be wrong).

Another piece appears to be no more than a segmented portrait of Tres Marias until one reads its title: ?Fairies of Banahaw Assessing Cracks in the Mountain,? with the alternative title ?Babaylans Delivering the Wounds of the Mountains.?

In many such pieces, particularly in her use of explicit title and subtitle, the visual artist in Cordero-Fernando clearly coexists with the writer in her. In any painting of hers, only with the written word can one get the full story.