Poetic memories of youth captured in brass by FERDINAND R. CACNIO opens at Hiraya Gallery at United Nations Avenue, Ermita, Manila on July 26.

Entitled BRASS IDYLLS (An Ode to Malabon), the exhibition lays out a series of welded images of fish farms or “palaisdaan” (in Tagalog), replete with huts, fishnets, bancas, and the lonely figures of the fishermen.  It is an ode to the seas and lakes which bound the Philippine islands. Also it is a paean to the bounties of the sea that fill the hearty meals in our tourist spots, the “pulutan” beside bottles of beer and native rhum during male camaraderie, and the sight of good cheer among the plates of the family meal. The kind and size of fish on the table is the tell-tale measure of the poverty in the fisherman’s family life.

Inspired by these ideas, Ferdie Cacnio revels in the nostalgic images of his youth when he plowed his bike on the roads along Malabon river and over the fishponds at Dampalit, Hulung-Duhat and Muson, barrios of Malabon. The sights of the fish farms are indelible memories of the path towards his grandfather, Flaviano Cacnio a watchman and “encargado” who lived at those fish farms, a fading scene because of urban development.

His table top sculptures show Ferdie Cacnio’s strong eye for details. He fills the welding brass rods with nodes and bends them like the wind-worn bamboo poles above the water. The knots which bind them around replicate the windings of calloused hands that knew the blasts of winds, shown also by the upturned nipa thatches on the roofs of the watchman’s hut. The tilts of the water tides meeting the wind blows are cast on the nearly imperceptible folds of the mesh wire nets floating away on the fisherman’s arms.

Rising from his heart and memories, Ferdie Cacnio rendered his pieces with a lyrical touch almost like an ancient ballad-maker crooning his song. With his degrees of B.S. Psychology and B.S. Civil Engineering from the University of the Philippines-Diliman and a work experience as a graphic designer for 20 years, his creative works display the qualities of precision and spontaneity that evoke wonder. He executes these qualities from his power of keen observation and sense of realism, the traits which he inherited from his parents: Angel Cacnio, also an artist, and his mother, Amelia Reyes.

Ferdie Cacnio won 2nd place in the 2005 AAP (Art Association of the Philippines) Annual Art Competition. In 2006, he completed his first large-scale work, the 10-ft tall public art “Pasasalamat” which stands in the Fort Bonifacio Global City in Taguig.