Crocodile Tears: An Interview with Acuña,
Artist Behind 'Buwaya Baby'
by Orquídeas
Sept 19, 2024
In a blend of cultural reclamation and personal expression, the artist behind the captivating painting buwaya baby offers us a glimpse into the volcanic heart of their creative process. This piece, which features a human figure adorned with crocodiles and butterflies, challenges perceptions and invites viewers to reconsider their relationship with nature and self. I sat down with the artist to explore the rich symbolism and personal journey embedded in this work. buwaya baby invites us to challenge our perceptions, reclaim our power, and find connection with the natural world and our ancestral protectors. It's a powerful reminder that in embracing all aspects of ourselves - the fierce and the fragile, the misunderstood and the revered - we find our true strength in the bite, the smile, and the crocodile tear.
Q: Your piece centers around a buwaya. Can you tell us what that means and why it's significant?
A: A buwaya is a crocodile, an animal deeply revered in Filipino culture. Spanish colonization and Western ideals put a narrative on buwaya as a negative symbol in politics to associate buwaya with a greedy or corrupt politician or policeman, partially due to the perception of crocodiles being vicious and man-eating.
In this piece, I am focusing on reclaiming the pre-colonial relationship with buwaya as a revered creature, as a symbol of power and strength.
Q: The eyes in your painting are particularly alluring. What role does the gaze play in this piece?
A: I have been captivated by eyes and drawing eyes since a child. When I was younger I didn’t like putting eyes on human figures I drew. But I loved drawing eyes by themselves. In this painting, I leaned into that choice of my inner child that I simply didn’t want to put human eyes on a human figure.
In understanding this figure, the gaze here acts as a mindfuck. The crocodile’s eye is very similar to a human’s, and in a place where the human’s eye would be. Yet the eye of the butterfly is very basic (looking at it now, it also reminds me of the evil eye symbol). The butterfly’s eye is also “crooked” in the way that it’s not in-line with the crocodile’s eye. I could see how looking at these eyes on the face could frustrate a viewer because they wish they knew what the human’s face “actually” looked like. And that pleases me to not give that viewer what they want–what they think they are entitled to. In this way, the buwaya and butterfly are protecting the figure.
This piece is, in a way, is my reclamation of perception.
Q: The figure in the painting feels both exposed and protected. Can you elaborate on this duality?
A: The inspiration for this piece came from an image of a crocodile with butterflies on its head (many on his head like a flower crown). It was a photo by Marc Cowan that was being reposted by various accounts, sharing that “butterflies drink the tears of turtles, caimans, alligators and crocodiles as a source of salt (sodium) and other minerals as a source of nutrition. The animals like it because they also get their eyes cleaned” (@meltmuseum on Instagram).
This relationship between creatures often perceived as opposites - one feared, one delicate - resonated with me.
“The butterfly doesn’t fear the crocodile.”
The buwaya and the butterfly in my painting act as protectors for the human figure, masking their eyes and identity.
This ties into the Filipino concept of pakikipagkapwa - the idea that each person is an extension of oneself. By finding relation to each creature on earth, we challenge our own fears. The buwaya acts as an ancestral protector, a presence felt but not always seen.
Q: Your use of scale in the painting is intriguing, particularly the small volcano in the heart space. What's the significance of this?
A: Before adding the volcano on the heart, it felt empty to me. It felt flat. The volcano represents my homes, the lands I come from. As someone who lives between multiple homes, and has relationships/family in multiple places, and who grew up feeling like I didn’t belong to a single place, I have realized in my late 20s that my home is first and foremost always with(in) me. And that volcano is the fire of my life that ignites with passion in guidance for my life’s calling. The volcano in the heart seems like its a figure of speech, but I believe this true–like one of my favorite artists, Frida Kahlo said, "I don't really know if my paintings are surreal or not, but I do know that they represent the frankest expression of myself."
Q: Do you have personal memories of buwaya? Were you ever afraid of them?
A: I’ve seen crocodile farms and sanctuaries in the Philippines where they would pile on top of each other in silence. I was intrigued by their closeness. I’m still intrigued by their hard bodies that move so slithery—bodies that are such a different experience than my own. I wasn't scared. I was amazed to see them shift from peace to ferocity at a snap when the caretakers dropped their raw meat for supper. Thinking the same thing I’m thinking now: damn I wanna be like that.
Q: So, who is 'Buwaya Baby'?
A: Me.
In the end, Buwaya Baby emerges as a creature of paradox, a being as complex and layered as the volcanic heart that beats within her chest. She is the crocodile and the butterfly, the feared and the delicate, the protector and the protected. Her gaze, a mindfuck of mismatched eyes, dares you to look deeper, to see beyond the surface and into the depths of her ancestral power.
Buwaya Baby is not just a painting; she is Heidi Grace Acuña, she is a reclamation in a river bed of other crocodiles, a rebellion against the colonized narrative that sought to vilify the buwaya. She is the artist herself, raw and unapologetic, wearing her heritage like armor and her vulnerability like a crown of butterflies. In her, we see the embodiment of pakikipagkapwa, a reminder that we are all extensions of one another, connected by an archipelago of tears we shed and the strength we share.
In the silence between her smile, in the space between brush strokes, Buwaya Baby whispers a truth as ancient as the islands themselves: We are all creatures of contradiction, divine and dangerous, exposed and protected. And in embracing these dualities, we find our true power, our true selves.
The butterfly doesn't fear the crocodile, and Buwaya Baby fears nothing at all.