:. Fragments of Incantations : Mario de Rivera : Hiraya

On the fringes of Mario de Rivera's delightful painting "Perfect Age," a 2003 oil, acrylic, modeling paste and photo transfer paean to the joy of marking a recent birthday, the artist has added several photo transfers. Part icons and part mini-artworks in themselves, with their generous dashes of faux gold leaf and swirls of modeling paste patterns, they appear like a series of images from a happy life, a gallery of its obvious inspirations-De Rivera's wife Luz traveling, his nephew and niece in costume, and, most central and conspicuous of all, a smiling portrait of his nine-year-old son Lorenzo.

As a proud father now recounts, Lorenzo was thrilled at his starring role. "He told my wife, I'm so proud Papa put me on the front of his painting. I have to invite my teachers and classmates so they will see!"

There's a warm, interesting discrepancy between Mario de Rivera's work and the world he lives in. The paintings are scenes from a magical fantasy milieu, full of larger-than-life plants, Gauguinesque nymphs, shimmering Arabic patterns intersecting with Oriental lines. In "Perfect Age," a cloud of chaotic color and texture mounted with a European court scene floats above a pastoral background of mountains, sky, and curious mortals. In "Nuestro Eden Perdido," a richly-embellished cry against the demise of the natural and innocent, mutated flowers meet spaceships and modern icons like rhum bottle labels, fabric swatches and postage stamps, flanked by a Madonna and child and a bahag-clad denizen of simpler times and places.

This last triptych, in fact, joins several others on exhibit in "Fragments of Incantations," De Rivera's much-awaited first exhibit since 1998, which opens today at the Hiraya Gallery on UN Avenue, Manila. It also comes to the viewer with formidable credentials; last March, "Eden" won the Excellence Award at the 2003 Beppu Contemporary Art Exhibition in Japan, besting over a thousands entries from all over the world. Not bad for a guy who, by his own admission, doesn't know when to stop working. "That's my problem!" De Rivera laughs, pointing to "Perfect Age." If Didi (Dee of Hiraya Gallery) didn't tell me she was picking up this panting at 9 a.m., I would have kept on going!"

When De Rivera is described in write-ups as "reclusive" and "unspoiled by commercial success," it's hardly because he's off in the mountains living the life of a solitary aesthete. Instead, it's a very grounded life spent "taking care of my family. Last year, when my wife was in Australia for a while, I had to get Lorenzo ready for school, take him to taekwondo class. This summer, it was swimming lessons." The dedication was not lost on his biggest fan. "Lorenzo once told me I was the best dad in the world because I could make these wonderful paintings, and still be with them all the time," De Rivera notes happily. "You know, I do look at other dads all the time and wonder if they're having fun with their families. There are trade-offs, of course. I don't earn as much as they do, but I'm always there for my son. That's something money can't buy."

De Rivera also came upon his current style in an unusual way; he and then-girl-friend Luz were making cakes, intricately designed confections that became a huge hit among the Manila crowd. "My mom always made nice cakes, an I liked eating them. The Luz and I saw these beautiful English porcelain cakes, and we taught ourselves how to make them." The enterprise lasted a couple of years, even as De Rivera, a University of Santo Tomas Fine Arts graduate, was already painting on the side. It was only later that he began painting full-time. He had had his first exhibit at the Solidaridad Gallery in Manila in 1976, and joined several group exhibitions before finding home ground in Hiraya.Although he majored in advertising and had worked in the industry in China and the Middle East, De Rivera knew early on that a 9-to-5 job was not his cup of tea. His father was a lawyer, but it was his art teacher mother whose genes he inherited, he claims. "Even as a kid, I knew I would get into something creative. I already knew what oil paint smelled like."

De Rivera is as easy-going as they come about his artistic intentions, leaving people to interpret his works in any way they wish. "I like to keep them guessing. I love contradictions, anyway." He confesses to having some difficulty talking about his work and would rather let his feelings move him, sometimes working on several canvases at the same time and working best under pressure, when he becomes "more spontaneous." The detailed intricacy of De Rivera's fabulous cakes lives again on the canvas, with the modeling paste looking like it was squeezed out of a pastry bag, good enough to eat.

Although it took Hiraya almost five years to pin De Rivera down for this exhibit, he still won't commit to a next one. "It depends on when I have the time. We'd still like to travel as a family, when we can afford it." Does Lorenzo show any signs of following in his footsteps? "He wants to be a veterinarian, but drawn very well, especially Japanese cartoons," De Rivera gushes. "In fact, we worked together on a painting once. It was sold!"