Addie Cukingnan leads the art charge for Banaue Clinic
With 30 years of professional experience, self-taught artist Addie Cukingnan has evolved into a master of oriental landscapes, flora and fauna, still lifes and figures akin to Chinese painting. Yet, instead of using the classic traditional Chinese style of brush-and-ink on silk or paper, Addie uses mostly oil and acrylic, employing western techniques like chiaroscuro. This is evident in her masterful paintings of huge porcelain or ceramic jars, distinguished by the superb sheen of reflected light rendering them almost three-dimensional on the canvas, made even more exquisite with details of dragons, birds, and flowers.
Those paintings are highlighted by the artist’s favorite subject, magnolias, part of Addie’s 21st solo art exhibit titled “The Scent of Magnolias” presented at the Galerie Francesca, SM Megamall. Her dainty, pristine magnolias come alive, more elegant and sensuous against the shimmering jars. The blooms remind her of her mother, cutting fresh flower buds at their Baguio home, recalling Haruki Murakami’s line: “In the pale evening gloom, when the soft fragrance of magnolias hung in the air, my heart would swell without warning.”
Addie’s technique is reminiscent of Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) female artists Yun Bing and Ma Quan. Like the two Chinese artists from upper-class families, Addie (whose father is of Chinese ancestry and mother pure Filipino) excelled at painting flowers, birds, butterflies, and dragonflies. Self-taught, she keeps a regular schedule of painting in her bucolic mountain abode in Tanay.
An expression of generosity
Addie is not just a consummate and disciplined artist, but possibly the most generous artist I know, whose solo shows in the past benefited Good News Clinic and Hospital (GNCH), a mission hospital in Banaue, Ifugao (“Art for Good News Sake,” 2024), Bukang Liwayway/Dawn for the Poor Foundation (“Sinag ng Pag-asa,” 2022), International Care Ministries/ICM (“In the Stillness of the Mist,” 2020), GNCH (“How Great Thy Art,” 2019), World Vision (“Addie for Children,” 2017), UNICEF (“Flowers for Children,” 2003), not to mention the many benefit group shows with her other artist friends.
One of those benefit shows is now ongoing at the Greenhills Christian Fellowship in Ortigas to support the GNCH, which has been serving the Ifugao and other mountain tribes in the Banaue Rice Terraces area in the Cordilleras for 69 years. The hospital is now facing weathered infrastructure and slipping foundations, requiring an upgrade of systems and sustainable healthcare. Thus, the IPAPHOD Transformation Project was launched to restore, rebuild, retool, renew, and reaffirm the GNCH mission for generations to come. IPAPHOD is an Ifugao word meaning “to set things right, to make things good, to fix, improve, and reset to standard.”
Back in 1956, Dr. James Irvine, a WWII veteran and missionary physician, and his wife Helen built a simple two-story structure at Barrio Tam-an in Banaue. With the support of SEND International, it was transformed into a sanctuary of care. Their vision was clear: to treat not just the body but also to win the soul to Christ. Through the years, many faithful servants carried on that mission like doctors William McCurry, Eleazar Sarmiento, and Joel Ruiz. In 1988, Dr. Antonio Ligot and his wife Sylvia led and guided the GNCH for 35 years with unwavering dedication. Dr. Ruiz’s son, Joash Po Ruiz, a medical director of GNCH for a decade, took over from 2021 until 2024. He was followed by Dr. Carolyn Abayao as medical director starting January 2025. A native of Banaue, Abayao was only 13 when she was treated at GNCH after a tragic accident, losing her mother and two siblings in a landslide. That young girl would eventually come back to the hospital as a nurse from 2013-2015, later becoming a physician who would take over the helm of GNCH with its many challenges.
Artists for a cause
On the 69th year of GNCH, Addie stepped up again, leading a group of 69 generous artists, including members of Floral Artists Manila (FAM), Female Art Addicts, ArtePintura, Lisa Villaseñor, Jo Uygongco, Naomi Banal Huertas, Stella Schapero, Meneline Wong, Ronnie Lim, Azor Pazcoguin, Rey Aurelio, Danny Rayos del Sol, and others in donating artworks to support the IPAPHOD project, the scope of which covers the infrastructure rehabilitation, acquisition of ultrasound machines, patient lifts, diagnostic equipment, essential supplies, construction, and reinforcement of retaining walls and disaster resilience structures. The project also covers training programs, scholarships, leadership academies, and chaplaincy development.
These are daunting tasks for GNCH. That’s why GNCH is inviting people to be a part of the IPAPHOD Transformation Project. You can visit the IPAPHOD art exhibit at GCF Ortigas, running until Dec 14. Every artwork or other item you purchase, or cash donation you give, will make a difference.
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The author is a freelance writer and retired business executive, president of the Maningning Miclat Art Foundation, Inc., and author of books Soul Searchers and Dreamers: Artists’ Profiles and Soul Searchers and Dreamers, Volume II, and co-author with Mario I. Miclat, Maningning Miclat and Banaue Miclat of Beyond the Great Wall: A Family Journal, a National Book Awardee for biography/autobiography in 2007.
