Elena Coyiuto’s journey from businesswoman to artist
She paints 10 hours a day, seven days a week. “The only time I don’t paint is when I’m on a plane,” says businesswoman-turned artist Elena Coyiuto.
You would think that with such intensity and with her life experiences, her subjects would be dark as if anger or sadness fuels this passion. On the contrary, it’s exuberance and hope that do.
Elena is holding her first one-woman exhibit called “Exuberance: The Passion of Elena” at Finale Art Gallery, opening on July 29. About 45 pieces will be exhibited, all rendered in acrylic.
As art critic Cid Reyes commented, “Elena’s exhibit is an affirmation of the artist presenting a bounty of works that live up to the definition of exuberance: abounding in vigor, high spirits and vitality. The contemporary temper and tension of her works can be felt in the way they assail the viewer: an unabashed, in-yourface fearlessness.”
Her subjects are flowers, still lifes, horses, a three-year-old boy from Navotas, a portrait of a beautiful model, a mother and child, a father and daughter, horses, dragons. Indeed, her colors come alive as flowers on tables that could be in small cottages by the seaside and intertwined with the bounty of fruit farms — grapes especially.
Her mentor, Egay T. Fernandez, says of Elena, “She uses color as if it were a universal language that touches the heart.”
The exuberant journey of Elena the painter to Finale Gallery, after being part of two group shows earlier this year, is closely tied with her departure from the stressful world of business — but her discipline as a painter starts from there.
Her eldest daughter Stephanie, an art collector, was the one who encouraged Elena to show her work starting with a group show. “We weren’t really surprised when Mommy started painting. She has always been the creative one in the family and my dad the non-creative because he’s always been in business,” she says with a laugh. “It was my mom who encouraged me and my sister Samantha to write, my other sister Sofia to be in film, and brother Alex to build beautiful houses. Even in her family (the Tan Yus), it’s not unusual for them to be in the arts. Her sisters Bien Bien and Elizabeth are art collectors and amazing photographers.”
Elena’s husband, businessman Peter Coyiuto, is supportive and “lets me do what I want,” Elena says. But it must have been different seeing his wife working on her paintings at home and seeing her works hanging alongside other artists’ in a show.
He bought one of her paintings from a group show and proudly hung it in his office.
When she didn’t have a studio of her own yet, she would paint in her friend’s house, in Sunshine Place along Jupiter St., or rent one of the classrooms at San Antonio Church and paint furiously for hours until it was time to pack up.
Elena was taught by Filipino master artists who hold workshops for aspiring ones — Egai T. Fernandez, Fernando Sena, Fidel Sarmiento among others — and last year she attended the Kline Academy of Arts in LA to do an intensive painting program.
“We were painting from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m,” she says. “I learned so much from artist Cheryl Kline, and that’s when I decided that painting would be a lifetime passion for me. But showing your work also makes you feel vulnerable. When I paint, I pour everything into it. I didn’t want to have a show at first because I am painting just for self-expression, but then I thought, well, that’s how I feel and that’s how I express it … I should not be conscious of what critics will say.”
Why did she start painting? “Because of passion. I’ve always been into arts but my line was more literature (she majored in literature, first at University of Massachusetts and then at University of San Francisco). I come from a very traditional family and they expected me to take up a course like accounting, business or law. Art for them is a no-no, you don’t take art for a career.”
Her father, the visionary taipan Tan Yu, was livid at her wanting a career in the arts, so Elena compromised — she took up both literature and business.
But he couldn’t have blamed his daughter for wanting to take up literature as a course. After all, when Elena finished two years of high school in Manila, he sent her to a boarding school in Switzerland, where her love of literature developed. “Europe is very art-oriented and when you are in a boarding school, you get lonely and homesick, so I turned to books. In my fourth year of finishing school, I fell in love with the books of Ayn Rand. When you’re young, you’re so idealistic and impressionable!”
She was 22 when she got married. She came back to Manila and took the traditional route of working in the family business… so the art part of her life was put on the back burner.
“My father was the biggest influence in my life. He taught me Confucian values, that you have to work hard. I was so different then. I was a workaholic and my sole aim was to become a power business lady. With my Escada suit and three-inch shoes, I would be in the office before 8 a.m. attending numerous meetings, cocktails and parties.”
Then the financial crisis of 1997 happened. “At that time, the real estate bubble burst and interest rates went as high as 35 percent. Most businesses suffered and banks started to stop lending and called on loans. It was a nightmare and a wakeup call for all of us. Our business was very much affected and it was a turning point for me. My father was not in good health after a kidney transplant and all the stress and tension started to take a toll on him. I thought, you work so hard all your life and then at the end of the day somebody can just pull the rag from under your feet and everything will be gone.
“My father used to say, ‘The hardest thing is to get off from the back of a tiger,’” Elena says. “And the higher you are, the harder the fall. Looking at me now, people think, wow, all you do is paint. But I’ve been through the toughest times, faced so many challenges in life, and my family was close to financial ruin and it lasted for years.”
During that time, Elena turned to tennis “to relieve stress and to keep sane. I’d be in the court, morning, noon, and evening. The best way for me to let it all out was to hit a ball with a racquet.”
One thing she didn’t expect to come out of tennis was meeting a group of women in Manila Polo Club who would be her support group through those difficult times and become lifelong friends with them. Another bonus was that it influenced her youngest daughter Samantha, who ended up becoming a competitive tennis player.
Flash forward: Properties rebounded and business recovered. Elena is a changed person. Clad in simple leggings and flat shoes, she looks and feels happier. Today, she spends her time zumbaing with her friends and less time in the office. “I learned how to give myself ‘me’ time. Life is learning how to balance something you have to do with something that makes you happy. You don’t need to have all the material wealth in the world, as long as you have peace of mind. Life is always a process of learning… regardless of age.”
Today, her passion is painting, which she sees as a discovery for one of life’s biggest secrets, which everybody knows but few actually act on. “Even at a certain age, you can find fulfillment doing something that you’re passionate about. The greatest misconception people have is that they don’t have talent. Everybody has a talent, it’s a matter of translating it into your passion, and you won’t know it until you try it.’’
It’s not just exuberance for life that fuels one’s passion, it’s hope — in one’s capacity to learn and prod that spirit deep down to come out and just do.
Elena picked up a brush and started to paint.
Baste is a three-year-old boy from Navotas. He has darkbrown skin from the sun, cute eyes and a disarming smile.
Elena saw him last year when her daughter Samantha took her foundation, “Are you REAdy?” which supports literacy, to Navotas. (Samantha or Mae Mae is launching her first young adult novella, The Year We Became Invincible, on Aug. 8)
“During the storybook telling, he kept looking and smiling at me,” Elena says.
The image of the child and his environment was seared upon her mind. Not too long after, she began painting him — one of the very few realist paintings she is putting up on exhibit and it is her favorite work.
Her exuberant colors are not on this canvas. It is neither “pretty” with an impressionist’s view of life nor is it sad. It is hopeful.
Standing over the shanties of Navotas and in the distance, the skyline of a city that knows only privilege, Baste is a portrait of a three-year-old that knows only one life — the one that he lives in poverty. But in his eyes and in the book that he clutches in his hand, entitled Pangarap, you can see that his future could go either way. And the little boy is smiling.
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“Exuberance: The Passion of Elena” opens at Finale Gallery, Pasong Tamo, Makati, on July 29.
My father (the visionary taipan Tan Yu) used to say, ‘The hardest thing is to get off from the back of a tiger,’ Elena says. ‘And the higher you are, the harder the fall.’