A Sweet Love Language | Judy Butay Cacal
Puraw, colored pencil
Curated by Thiến Mùi Easland
Exhibition: May 7th – June 2021
Reception/Artist Conversation: Friday, May 7th 2:00 - 4:00pm PST
Show Statement - Judy Butay Cacal
The phrase “I love you” was rarely spoken by my parents. The straightforward and verbal gesture is foreign for most first-generation Asian Americans. For me personally, my parents showed their affection through fruits. My summers were filled with ripe fruit my dad hand-picked from the various trees in the backyard. My mom would cut and serve me a plate of the ice-cold harvest on hot summer days. She would stand in my bedroom doorway with a plate in hand and nothing more than a silent nod. I could hear this form of my parents’ love language loud and clear. A Sweet Love Language is a visual representation of my love for fruits, memories of past summers, and my parents.
Artist Bio
Judy Butay Cacal is a Filipino-American artist from Waipahu, Hawaii. The concepts of Cacal’s initial artwork stem from her academic studies at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. She received her Bachelor’s of Science in Tropical Plant and Soil Sciences in 2018, and during her junior year in college, Cacal enrolled in an introduction to drawing course where she learned the fundamentals of drawing.
Briefly, after working with the state of Hawai’i as a Plant Quarantine Inspector, Cacal understood her true passion: creating art centered around the plants, flowers, and fruits she surrounded herself with. She has found success within her first year of opening her online store Butay Art LLC where she has made hundreds of national sales of her self-designed bookmarkers, stickers, and prints.
Colored pencil on toned tan paper is Cacal’s most practiced medium and has recently begun to include oil painting and digital software in her art repertoire. She uses blending and shading techniques that soften bright colors just enough to evoke calmness without completely silencing the colors’ natural vibrancy.
The fascination of flora along with the love for femininity are themes that often influence Cacal’s art, and she hopes these concepts are given voices for the audience to listen for in the exhibit A Sweet Love Language.
