Come hell or high water — even back when he was a child, a struggling student, or a family man with a day job to keep — artist Demi Padua would always start or end his day with art. And with a million sketches and brushstrokes, he forged the life he had always dreamt of.
By JOSE PAOLO S. DELA CRUZ
At the Kingly Treasures Auction of Leon Gallery on Dec. 02, 2023, Demi Padua struck gold. His acrylic on canvas painting of a poignant face peeking through a storm of geometric elements, titled “Prepared & Decided,” fetched P4.8 million — a record for the artist, whose waitlist is currently as long as two tofour years.
By then, anyone could say that Demi Padua, indeed, had arrived. Anyone but the self-e!acing artist, who remains grounded in his ways, despite having been exhibited in various parts of the world, including a sold-out show at the Kobayashi Gallery in Tokyo last November.
Surprisingly, Demi couldn’t remember the title of his most expensive painting to date, even struggling to identify details on when and where it was sold. All he could tell us during the interview was that it was sold at a “Leon Auction.”
What he never forgets, though, are his motivations as an artist.
“Almost all of my works have masks on top of the faces,” starts o! Demi in the vernacular. “And it’s because there are a lot of layers in the emotions I try to bring to the canvas.”
Emotions that come from very real and raw moments in his life, too. For instance, the masks in his paintings were mostly inspired by the time he worked as a talent for a party group, where they would don colorful costumes and masks to entertain people. “Underneath, pagod na pagod at pawis na pawis kami. Pero hindi iyon nakikita ng mga audience. [We were very tired and sweaty underneath, but the audience didn’t see it.] They would applaud us,” he says.
Such rapturous applause would also fade into oblivion as soon as the lights were turned off and their “second skins” were shed. “Pagbaba namin wala nang pumapansin sa amin. Kasi kami na lang ’yun. [The moment we go down the stage, no one pays attention to us anymore. Because without our costumes, we were just ourselves,]” he shares.
An artist unmasked
From the base of his paintings to the various parts of the face that serve as their focal point, up to the many shapes and textures that make up the masks, Demi’s paintings are layer upon layer of nuanced emotions. And all these are rooted in the rich life experiences that have helped forge the loving husband and father of two into who he is today.
From the comfort of his modern four-story, stone-and-glass studio in Bulacan, Demi regales this writer with stories of his childhood, which mostly consisted of drawing, not just after school, but also after he had helped his father with his job.
Instead of getting laborers for his projects, he would rely on his second eldest, Demi, to help him save on costs.
Demi recalls a particularly hard time at work when he and his dad were finishing up a wall in the middle of the day. There wasn’t a tree in the area, nor a single shade. And at 1 p.m., the young boy, whose only protection from the sun was the shirt he had wrapped on his head, began to feel faint. “Hilong-hilo na ko pero di ako pwede tumigil. At natatandaan ko nakikita ko yung cyclone wire sa bakod na ginagawa namin. Naipangako ko sa sarili ko na hindi magiging ganito ang buhay ng pamilya ko balang araw. [I was feeling so faint but I couldn’t stop to rest. I remember seeing the cyclone wire on the wall we were building. I promised myself that my family would never have to go through this someday.]” he tells us.
It was a promise he delivered on — not only for his wife and two kids — but even for his parents. Yet tears well in his eyes when he remembers the limits of what he could give. Barbed wire, on the other hand, has since become a constant element in Demi’s paintings.
Father and son
Demi’s father passed away before his son could finish the studio we were seated in. Its walls are now bittersweet reminders of both his success and the fact that his father couldn’t see it rise into completion.
“When my dad grew older, he became so supportive of me,” says Demi with a tender smile. “He would carry my art supplies, help me finish some work, clean up after me. Minsan sabi ko, ’Tay, hindi naman kita alalay [Sometimes, I’d remind him, Dad, you’re not my assistant!].” But his old man would just brush him off and continue what he was doing.
It was a huge blow for him when he lost his father to COVID-19 in 2022. “He was very strict, and to be honest, he initially wanted me to go into other ventures when I was younger. He didn’t believe in art as a profession. But when he saw how much it meant to me, he relented and became my biggest supporter,” he shares.
Demi’s dad may have been his biggest supporter, but his mom was his number one fan. Whether when he was filling up his notebooks with drawings or showing a lack of interest in other technical subjects in high school, all the way up
to college when he decided to study Fine Arts at the Far Eastern University — with no more than a pocketful of dreams — his mother had always been cheering him on.
He remembers a time when his father had helped him secure a job in an electronics shop, since he couldn’t afford to go straight tocollege after high school. “Imagine, I was there for two years, but I couldn’t even repair a transistor radio?” Demi says laughing. “Sabi ng nanay ko sa tatay ko, wala, gusto talaga mag-artist [My mom told my dad, just accept that he wants to be an artist!]
No “Sunday artist”
Despite his many successes, Demi, who at the time of this writing had just successfully participated at the famous Maison et Objet trade fair in Paris, remains as committed to his art as ever. He still wakes up early, and paints daily, sometimes (if not most of the time) from 5 a.m to 1 a.m.
This level of consistency and discipline resulted from decades of practice, especially when he still had a day job as an art director for an undergarments company. “No matter how busy things got, the moment I came home, I would pick up the brush and paint,” recalls Demi, who would even find time to join group shows, exhibits and competitions despite his busy schedule.
His manager, Derek Flores, particularly admires how he had chosen to invest in his studio first, before anything else. “Many artists are prone to leveling up their lifestyle the moment they become successful. So, when I saw Demi investing and building his studio as soon as he started to afford it, I knew that it was a good sign,” he tells us.
As for Demi, there’s no other way of doing things.
The first time I met Demi, he told me that to be a successful artist, one must not be content with simply being a “Sunday artist!” And yes, that’s no lip service.
Photography by DIX PEREZ
Art direction by DEXTER FRANCIS DE VERA
Grooming by LARS CABANACAN
