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Dranreb Belleza mounts exhibit for 54th birthday

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Leah C. Salterio

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img alt="Dranreb Belleza mounts exhibit for 54th birthday" src="https://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2023/life/08/05/20230805-dranreb-belleza.jpg"/></figure></div>MANILA -- (UPDATED) Many know Dranreb Belleza as an actor who started his career in films, mostly of his ninong, Fernando Poe, Jr., such as “Pagbabalik ng Lawin,” and “Anino ng Araw.” Belleza was also seen in the top-rating TV show, “Kaluskos Musmos.” Through the years, however, he has turned himself into a “multi-disciplinary artist,” who does video, film, performance art connected to theater, painting and written work.“It’s all-encompassing because it’s easier,” Belleza told ABS-CBN News. “I don’t want to sound pseudo-intellectual talking about my art. That’s my process.”His last performance art was with his mom, veteran actress Divina Valencia, at Makati Cinema Square in 2019. “We were invited by the Japanese NGO to talk about the comfort women,” Belleza recalled.“I played the ghost of an aborted Japanese-Filipino child. My mom played the comfort woman. Basically, my mom was just crying. She was in white, but I painted the clothes red, which signified the blood of the martyrs and the comfort women.“I previously acted enormous times with my mom, like in ‘Lovingly Yours, Helen,’ “Maricel Drama Special,’ ‘Mother Studio Presents.’ They always made me and my mom guest at the same time.”In actress-director Suzette Ranillo’s “Care Home” (2006), Belleza also co-starred on the big screen with his mom, although he again played another bit role.“After FPJ’s ‘Pamilya Banal’ in 1989, I played mostly cameo roles,” Belleza said. “I do miss acting. But what I miss most was waiting on the set and chatting with your co-actors. It’s so different, when I visit sets with my mom.”Belleza’s last cameo was Emmanuel de la Cruz’s “Slumber Party” (2012). “Movie-making now is so different from what I know three decades ago, the Golden Years,” Belleza lamented. “I don’t think I can still relate now. I don’t know.”He was previously being tapped to play a dad role in a teleserye, but Belleza turned it down after he was asked to do a screen test.“I had to beg off because I don’t think they could accommodate me. I have PTSD [post traumatic stress disorder] and I am bipolar. I need to take my medications at a certain time,&quot; he revealed.“I don’t think they can accommodate me with their working hours. Otherwise, my mental health will be affected.”At an early age of four, Belleza discovered he could already paint. “While I was filming my first movie, ‘Dalawa ang Nagdalang Tao sa Akin’ [1974], starring my ninang Susan Roces, Ronaldo Valdez and Boots Anson Roa.“I played a test tube baby,” he said. “The film was ahead of its time. During break time, my ninang Susan gave me big coloring books and big crayolas. At that time, I met artists at a very young age through my ninong Maning [Borlaza].“In my free time, I would always doodle or I would always draw robots like Voltes V or Mazinger Z. I finished high school in La Salle and then there was no other university I wanted to enter for college except University of the Philippines (UP).”His godfather FPJ sent him to Sta. Monica College in California in 1989. Belleza also attended UCLA one summer to take up Renaissance Art. Then he returned to UP.In the art world, Belleza’s nom de guerre is Reb Belleza. He is now based in Pasig with his wife Valerene de la Riva, whom he married in 2011. They have four children.Meanwhile, Belleza’s small circle of friends in showbiz includes Ramon Christopher Gutierrez, who has been his best friend and whom he has known since he was four. He is also close to Gutierrez’s ex-wife, Lotlot de Leon, as well as Nadia Montenegro.Belleza counts contemporary artist Pardo de Leon – “She’s amazing” – who’s a recipient of the 13 Artists Award from the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) in 1988, as one of those he admires.He also commends the works of multi-media artist Gerry Tan and contemporary artist Manuel Ocampo.Most of Belleza’s paintings have social relevance. “I’m a political being,” he said. “Part and parcel vis-à-vis my work has always context on what is going on and what I want to say symbolically or editorially in my works.“This collection, I did a lot of optical illusion and a lot of dots that pay homage to two women artists – Filipina Nena Saguil, who’s also known for her dots, as well as Brigitte Riley, who does optical illusion art, where her work vibrates and has movements.“I studied color theory with that and it wasn’t just painting dots. The context and the titles are visions of Eden. The paintings talk about the Garden of Eden and how it came to be.”Belleza has three other works that are transcriptions from the Bible. “During lockdown, there was a book made, ‘The Brave New World’ and participated by artists,” Belleza informed. “I was one of the participants. We were asked to paint during lockdown.“I was left to praying my devotionals every day. I started with the rosary at 8 a.m. and Gregorian chants or the Tagalog Bible.“I didn’t know what to paint and I didn’t want to paint people in masks or something quite literal of what I was going through when lockdown happened. I transcribed what I learned from the Bible and it eventually became a color fill.”Belleza has a piece called “The Garden of Gethsemane,” so a number of his paintings have a spiritual feel.“During lockdown, I turned to Jesus Christ to cope whenever I would have serious panic attacks. I was so paranoid to get COVID every time I would go out to buy medicines.”Belleza got the virus only eight months ago, after having his vaccines and boosters. “I thought I was never going to get COVID, but it still happened.”Every July to August for six years, Belleza always mounted a homecoming exhibit at the now-defunct Conspiracy Café along Visayas Avenue in Quezon City.“Since the café closed, I thought of continuing that birthday kind of thing, this time at Art Circle Gallery owned by the famed Alcantara family. It was the first gallery that believed in me and put my paintings on their walls.“I talked to the owner at the Bahay ng Alumni in UP Diliman. Everything just fell into place. The dots came later on because I got a lot of feedback with the dots. A lot of people commissioned works for that.“I don’t have a style. Every exhibit is different. Every show has a different imagery. I just noticed the color palette that I used is the same, but the imagery is mostly different.”He previously painted clowns, but when he discovered dots, Belleza was encouraged by his boss Dr. Marty Magsanoc to continue painting the dots. “That is the most time-consuming,” Belleza allowed. “I probably painted millions of dots already.”His most expensive painting was a P500,000 4x12 feet work that is now in Baguio City.“My painting is not by size, it’s by content,” said Belleza. “I can have a 4x8 feet painting that can cost P25,000, but I can also have a small painting that is 2 1/2x2 feet that can cost P100,000.“It became an optical illusion and I enjoyed doing the dots. I have ten 4ft. x 4ft. for this show,” he shared. “The works are all connected because they all are.”Belleza will mark his 54th birthday on August 6 with his 32nd solo painting exhibit, “It’s All Connected,” at the Art Circle Gallery. Cutting the ribbon is his “Kaluskos Musmos” co-star and long-time friend, Maricel Soriano.While completing his paintings for the exhibit, Belleza landed at the Cardinal Santos Hospital after he suffered hypotension or low blood pressure.“It registered a life threatening 50/20,” Belleza said. “Maybe it was stress or I was thinking about the vaccine. Again, that made me think of my life as an artist. When that happened, I had a lot of morbid thoughts.”He was convinced he had to paint more art work because he wants to leave his paintings to his wife and children.“Mas naging pursigido akong magpinta,” Belleza said. “So these are the end product of my paintings. It’s like a homecoming also because most of my professors in UP are attending – from Fine Arts to the College of Arts and Letters.” Even during the pandemic, Belleza had painting exhibits at the Pinto Museum in Antipolo and J Studio Gallery in Makati.His best painting is “Divina,” the portrait of his mom which now belongs to Dr. Magsanoc. “We were also trained in the classics,” Belleza said. “I just don’t do abstract. I also do portraits. I was commissioned to do Sheryl Cruz’s portrait. That was my last.”Showbiz opened a lot of doors for Belleza because of his being an actor. “Pero nakalimutan ko na ang showbiz,” he admitted. “I am a painter now more than being an actor.“Creativity comes and goes, but when you treat it as work, when you are given tools by your teachers who trained you in school and you practice those tools, you know color theory, rendering, perspective, all those things.“If you treat painting as work, you can stare at a blank canvass and go for it. I don’t wait for that thing called inspiration. I also get lazy at time. But when I have a show like this one, it’s full of anxiety and wanting to be perfect.“I can’t have a mediocre show in an excellent university. It has to be a show that’s worthy of being in the hallowed grounds of my beloved university. At par with the excellence that I need to give because I was trained in UP.”

Dranreb Belleza will mark his 54th birthday on August 6 with his 32nd solo painting exhibit, 'It’s All Connected,' at the Art Circle Gallery. 