Random Shots

The Unbeautiful Canvas

The scent of oil paints filled the air, a familiar and comforting fragrance in the old studio where Irene Marcos Araneta stood, quietly observing her daughter. Ireniella sat by the large canvas in front of her, brush in hand, strokes both harsh and hesitant. Her brow was furrowed, a deep concentration etched across her young face. The room was dim, lit only by the soft glow of a single overhead bulb, casting long shadows on the walls.

Irene watched in silence, recognizing the look on her daughter’s face—the same look she had worn when she herself painted, years ago. It was the face of someone grappling with more than just the art. Ireniella, like her mother, was no stranger to the complexities of emotion, and those emotions had begun to pour into her work.

"Do you think I’m like him?" Ireniella asked suddenly, her voice small but sharp, breaking the quiet of the room.

"Who anak?" Irene replied, taking a step closer, her curiosity piqued.

"Van Gogh," Ireniella said, her brush hovering over the canvas, suspended in a moment of indecision. "You know... unbalanced, fractured. His art was raw because he couldn’t contain it. It bled out of him, ugly and broken."

Irene hesitated before answering, her heart heavy as she looked at the half-finished painting before her. The strokes were rough, almost violent, and the colors bled into one another in ways that were both chaotic and haunting. There was no symmetry, no adherence to conventional beauty. It was, by all accounts, a reflection of something that hurt.

"You’re not unbalanced, anak," Irene finally said, her voice soft yet firm. "You’re not like him because you’re not an ‘alternative being.’ You’re you. Whatever you feel, you paint for yourself, not for others to define."

Ireniella turned to face her mother, her eyes dark with questions she hadn’t yet learned to ask. "Then why do I feel like I’m painting what I can’t speak? Why does it feel like everything I touch turns… unbeautiful?"

Irene sighed, recognizing her daughter’s struggle. She had felt the same as a young painter—trapped in a world where perfection was demanded, where beauty was a necessity, especially as a Marcos. The family name alone carried expectations of refinement, of presenting an image unmarred by the imperfections that others allowed themselves to reveal.

"You’re searching for something that you’re not meant to find," Irene said, crossing the room to sit beside her daughter. "Van Gogh wasn’t searching for beauty. He was searching for release, for freedom from the storm inside him. His art was unbeautiful because he didn’t need it to be otherwise."

Ireniella stared at her mother, the woman who had once stood as a beacon of elegance and poise, a figure of quiet strength. But beneath the surface, there was a storm Irene had never shown the world. Maybe it was that storm her daughter now inherited, a reflection of what remained unsaid between them.

"I feel like I’m painting something I can’t understand," Ireniella murmured, her brush finally touching the canvas again. This time, her strokes were slow, deliberate. "It’s like I’m trying to paint who I’m supposed to be, but all I can do is paint what I am."

Irene placed a hand on her daughter’s shoulder, squeezing gently. "Then paint that," she whispered. "Paint what you are."

Ireniella’s hands moved with renewed energy, her brush cutting through the thick layers of paint. The shapes formed slowly, uneven and wild, clashing against one another in a discordant symphony. There was no traditional beauty in the work—no soft edges, no pleasing symmetry. It was jagged, harsh, unbeautiful. But it was alive.

"I named you after myself," Irene said quietly after a long pause, her gaze fixed on the painting. "But you’re not me. I see pieces of myself in you, but you’re more than that. You’re not my second chance at life, nor are you some replacement for the person I couldn’t be."

Ireniella’s hand stilled, and she glanced at her mother, surprised by the vulnerability in her words.

"Ireniella, I gave you my name because I wanted you to have strength. I wanted you to have what I couldn’t. But that doesn’t mean you have to carry the weight I did," Irene continued, her voice breaking slightly. "You are not born from my regrets. You are not a shadow of what could’ve been."

The room grew quiet again, but the silence was no longer heavy with tension. Instead, it felt like a space where truths could finally breathe. Ireniella’s painting stood tall before them—raw, fractured, unbeautiful, and true.

"I don’t want to paint like this forever," Ireniella whispered. "I don’t want to feel like I’m suffocating in my own art."

"You won’t," Irene said softly, brushing a stray lock of hair from her daughter’s face. "But for now, let it suffocate you. Let it bleed onto the canvas. Sometimes, you need to release the unbeautiful before you can find the beauty that lies underneath."

Ireniella nodded slowly, returning her focus to the painting. The strokes grew more erratic, the colors more jarring. It was a mess, a vivid, chaotic mess of emotions that clashed with each other in a way that was painful to look at, but impossible to turn away from.

Irene watched, pride swelling in her chest as she saw her daughter pour herself into the canvas, not caring about the outcome, only about the process. This was art—unrestrained, unapologetic, and ugly in all the ways it needed to be. And in that ugliness, there was truth.

"Van Gogh’s mother named him after his dead brother," Ireniella said suddenly, breaking the silence. "Do you think he felt like a replacement?"

Irene looked at her daughter, her heart aching at the thought. "Maybe," she replied softly. "But I think, in the end, he wasn’t painting for his mother. He was painting for himself. That’s what you need to do. Paint for yourself."

Ireniella’s eyes softened, a small smile tugging at her lips for the first time that night. "For myself," she echoed, her voice filled with quiet determination.

As the night wore on, mother and daughter sat together, the scent of paint thick in the air, the sounds of brushstrokes filling the room. The painting that emerged was not beautiful by any traditional standard. It was fragmented, erratic, and deeply emotional—a reflection of Ireniella’s inner turmoil, her battle with her own identity.

But in that moment, it was perfect.

Irene knew that her daughter’s journey was far from over. There would be more nights like this, more paintings that would haunt her, more moments of doubt and confusion. But she also knew that, like Van Gogh, Ireniella’s art would eventually find its place, its purpose.

Even if that place was in the unbeautiful.

As the final stroke of paint landed on the canvas, Ireniella sat back, exhausted but satisfied. She looked at her mother, who smiled softly, a glint of pride in her eyes.

"You’ve painted your truth," Irene whispered. "That’s all that matters."

And for the first time in what felt like forever, Ireniella believed her.