Literature: Ramon N. Villegas & Lisa Guerrero Nakpil, TWO NAVELS: LEON CURATED AUCTION, Leon Gallery, Makati City, 2016, p. 78-82 and p. 83 (illustrated)

ABOUT THE WORK

A painter of bravura and dynamic penetration is Benedicto Cabrera who signs his work "Bencab". His women are stylized versions of the proverbial town madwoman, often enriched by being covered in bold, voluminous garbs. That Bencab is a master of line is amply demonstrated by the visual harmony he creates with the subjects. A sense of order and structure underlies the seeming spontaneity of the composition featuring the women’s ethereal garments. The faces are barely hidden by the fabrics and presents the pair at their most emphatic. Although Bencab honed his focus in drapery to the near exclusion of the two figures, the dynamics of the human bodies remain the primary vessels for their essential appreciation. Quoting the book “BENCAB” by Krip Yuson and Cid Reyes: “There is no more convincing proof of Bencab’s classicizing temper and abstracting eye than his enduring predilection for the drama of drapery.” Even with his frequent references to the classicist dancer Isadora Duncan, the two women in “Twins” are opposite the classical forms, they convey untrammelled freedom in their literally veiled dynamics. Almost all of Bencab’s themes for his draped women in the 1990s — from his Mysterious Women to his Kimono Clad women — come to play in this composition. The two figures are gestural in a frenzied, contrapuntal play of broad brushwork to emphasize the swishing movements of drapery that always engaged the artist. Bencab always favored using few colors rather than many; deep reds make for the backdrop of the painting. Bencab’s works assert that fewer colors in a painting gave the art greater force and meaning.