Kulay-Diwa Gallery of Philippine Contemporary Art

Kulay-Diwa Gallery of Philippine Contemporary Art is a privately owned venue for artistic expression. It is strategically located within a cluster of progressive communities South of Manila. It has an independent exhibition area able to accommodate large-scale works, and a spacious garden ideal for outdoor programs, performances and sculpture installations.

Goals of Kulay-Diwa:

To discover and promote the works of talented, young and deserving Filipino Artist;

To serve as a cultural outpost and make the arts more accessible to the fast-growing communities South of Manila; and

To foster cultural interaction and exchanges with the local regions,Southeast Asia and other countries.

Kulay (Color)

Diwa (Spirit, Thought)

Kulay-Diwa Gallery of Philippine Contemporary Art
25 Lopez Avenue, Lopez Village,Sucat
Paranaque City, Metro Manila 1700
Philippines
ph: Landline: (632)8260574
bobbit@kulay-diwa.com

Julie Lluch

Born on March 5, 1946 in Iligan City, Philippines. She completed a degree in Philosophy at the University of Sto. Tomas in 1967 . She held her first one-woman show at Sining Kamalig in 1977. Others followed in venues like Galerie Bleue, the Cultural Center of the Philippines, the Metropolitan Museum of Manila and Liongoren Art Gallery. Her 1997 show “Art and Faith” was held at Galleria Duemila.

She has also joined international group exhibits in Fukuoka, Brisbane, Tokyo, Jakarta and Bangkok.

In 1997 Lluch won the Araw ng Maynila award for Sculpture. She has also won awards for her work as a set designer and as an experimental filmmaker. She produced and acted in the prize-winning short film “Yuta, Earth Art of Julie Lluch Dalena”.

Lluch’s public sculpture commissions include statues of Ninoy Aquino and Arsenio Lacson along Roxas Boulevard.

Notes on a Potter's Life

by Julie Lluch

I tend to idealize the potter’s life – its closeness to nature, its romance with earth, water, wind and fire, its simplicity. I am endlessly impressed with the story from the bible of how God fashioned man out of clay and blew into it the breath of life. What vivid imagery! How apt the metaphor! I see the potter meditatively bent over the turning wheel out of which rises a vessel of clay. That, I tell myself, is how I shall spend the days of my old age, turning out magical pots in some quiet retreat near the mountain, or beside the sea.

I recall watching the great Japanese film Ugetsu about a simple potter caught in the cross currents of love, ambition and war. It used the ancient oriental Art of Pottery as a symbol of human spirit, attested to by the fragments and shards ubiquitously present in the background of all civilizations, races and histories.

I have secretly wished to be a potter and would have become one, if I hadn’t known I didn’t posses the qualities and temperament it takes to be one.

I have often asked: what is it that makes a potter go on making pots over and over again day after day? Is he not happy with his pots or is he still looking for the perfect one? His apprenticeship is long and his subject inexhaustible.

I liken the potter, quite romantically, to the primitive brujos of Carlos Castaneda’s landscape, whose secret knowledge of nature is the source of their powers. The potmaker of old is an accomplice of nature. In making a pot, he waits for the right season, the correct time of the day, chooses the exact spot on the earth, the elevation, the aridity, humidity. He checks the turn of the wind, the color of fire and after attending to a hundred other preparations, waits and prays for the unseen powers to favor the work of his alchemy.

I look on pottery as pure art. Here the artist serves as instrument of the material and not the other way round. The simpler the pot, the better it is. If it pretends to be other or more than a pot, the less perfect it becomes. It is pure in the sense that it is free from the intrusions of the maker’s person, who, as in the case of less pure arts, seeks to impose his mind on his material to get across a message or idea, a story or style—whatever it is—the self. A true potter sets aside ego and personality to achieve a good pot. This for me is true discipline, true humility.

Pottery, I decided, is not only unnatural but also impossible in the city. A monk can best pray in his monastery cell or a landscape painter can best paint in the great outdoors.

Most potters I know have settled in the countryside where they may be closer to their sources and elements, and work in peace beside a mountain or the sea. I, too, have tried to break away from the city, time and again, but I have eventually learned to move with the brisk beat of city life and to be energized by the richness of complexity, the texture and color of urban culture. I have become reluctantly urbanite (a city mouse if you like) continually enticed by technological novelties but wary of the efficiency and sophistication of metropolitan living.

I would be a potter in the wrong environment and would produce a different kind of pottery. Nevertheless, I would still speak the old language of clay.

In the world of art there exist certain set values and reactions that have nothing to do with reason. Clay aspiring to be art is considered cute. Clay has always been regarded as traditional; it is provincial, vocational, substandard, backward; it is nature, artifact, craft, folk; it is palayok. At best, it is ceramics. But it is NOT “Art.”
I found the allusions amusing and I began to realize, as I went on working, that clay sculpture/pottery, sculpture/ceramic art---whatever it is named, is a new and exciting thing as far as Philippine art is concerned and its possibilities lay waiting to be explored.

Moreover, I discovered that clay could deliver well in the high streets. It doesn’t have the sleek-smooth efficiency of bronze, but bronzes all tend to look alike and woods all seem to have the same finish. Clay has a charming quality, sometimes both endearingly naïve and sophisticated. Remarkably versatile and tractable, it can be witty, kitsch or even erotic. Speak a very personal language, from slang to classic.

From its origins, this subculture, sub-artistic medium carries with it the natural grain of protest and has evolved into a wonderful vehicle to pounce upon “high-art” and its agents of repression.

On occasions, I find myself arguing and defending lowly clay against the nobler and harder marble and bronze. And I need never fear it would run out on me because even as oil and acrylic get scarcer and dearer by the day, all the earth is covered with clay. Such is my confidence in this medium which has become to me a good weapon and companion, an alter ego thru the years.

I love to think of clay as the most apt poetic metaphor for artistic creation. It is a very sensual medium – soft, obedient and pleasurable to the touch. The artist is in most immediate contact with it, working directly with his hands and body. There are no intermediary tools.

I derive almost childlike delight working in this medium, remembering the time in childhood when playing with dirt and mud was such a grievous misdeed. Clay is a natural plaything and touching it revives old instincts. The thing is to let them out as fast as I can, as spontaneously and as joyfully.

I worked with children for a time, teaching forming methods like pinching, slab-making, coiling and free-hand sculpting. It is the youngsters who enjoy themselves most, playing lustily while giving the impression of seriously working and being so proud afterwards with their finished works. Play, work and art. How happily they go together.

Portraits

My early works were nudes and busts in terra cotta, mostly of members of my family, poets, artists and friends. Clay lends itself sensitively to portraiture, receiving the slightest pressure of hands, registering the finest lines. Even my

finger marks are visible all over the work.

I used a buff-colored groggy clay-mixture fired low, sanded and smooth, painted or tinted and then waxed shiny. I was pleased with its flesh-like texture and tone, the grogg showing on the surface like tiny pores on the human skin.

After a while, I grew uneasy and defensive about doing busts, a feeling I would eventually and quickly get over with it. Portraiture had long lost artistic esteem. It is “passé” and commercial and besides, what can it have to say about social conditions and current issues? But portraits will always be around and the artist’s repertoire will not be complete without them.

For a time the idea of people took hold of me-grouped figures, multitudes, masses, droves of human bodies moving together. This was the time of unrest and Great (First) Quarter Storm when the artists marched down the streets shouting slogans, students and communists burned effigies and stormed government buildings. This was also the time my husband painted his Jai-Alai series of numberless, faceless people queuing up ticket counters, mobs and city characters filling up rows of fronton galleries betting their last money and their souls in the game. Those were troubled times and, personally, also a stressful period. I did ceramic sculptures of students demonstrating, a religious procession of the Black Nazarene, a winding stream of migrants leading to nowhere. My husband’s influence on my work was clearly evident and inevitable. It was a good influence, too, during my formative years.

In the later part of the 70’s I witnessed the phenomenal development of Philippine art. The number of artists multiplied by the hundreds, galleries sprung up and there were exhibitions every week. Every kind of western and oriental idea was tried out, no ism was spared. I heard artists speak of relevance, social consciousness and commitment. The local art scene became a chop suey of sorts, not really a bad thing for Philippine art.

As my own awareness expanded, I sought an angle from which to view the world. I didn’t know much about life in general nor the world at large. I sought only to deal with things I knew best and which were closest to my heart.

Subsequently, I found my self working from the feminine viewpoint, creating sculptures with a rather tacky sexist character. There were a lot of women in my work, like the biblical “Susanna Bathing,” as fierce animals stalk and lustful elders watch from behind the rocks and bushes.

In my later works, I reduced conceptual elements in order to go back to the medium. One thing about clay: it is so receptive, one easily indulges one’s self in indiscriminate expression. This tendency I tried to control. In my new works I found clay again as my personal medium, exploring its sensuous character purely on the level of feeling or sensation.

These works are more abstract and concentrate on simple forms that draw attention to tactile qualities. For the first time I used glazes, disproving my own previous misconception about glazes being incompatible with sculptural works.
Perhaps what I’m doing now is to go back to potter. I enjoy doing simple forms, repeating them endlessly, I turn out phallic-like cacti forms, rocks and numerous heart-shapes.

I believe in working to exhaustion and satiety. When something takes hold of me, I work it out to the point of boredom. The stronger the emotion holds me, the longer it takes to drain out. I think an artist, like Almighty God of Genesis hovering over His awesome creation, stops to rest but only when happily satisfied he can say of his work: It is good.

Solo Exhibitions

2004 “Maranao Suites”
Galleria Duemila, SM Megamall, Manila, Philippines
2000 "Filipina 1898"De La Salle University Art Gallery, Taft Avenue, Manila, Philippines
1998 "Art and Faith"Galleria Duemila, The Art Center, SM Megamall, Mandaluyong City, Philippines
1998 "New Sculptures"
CCP Small Gallery, CCP Complex, Manila, Philippines
1994 "Passion and Statuary"Liongoren Art Gallery, SM Megamall, Mandaluyong City, Philippines
1991 "Earth Art of Julie Lluch-Dalena"Metropolitan Museum of Manila, Roxas Blvd., Manila, Philippines
1988 "New Sculptures"
Bulwagang Fernando Amorsolo, Cultural Center of the Philippines, Manila, Philippines
1985 "Recent Sculptures"
Maria Cristina Hotel, Iligan City, Philippines
1985 “Five Artists in March”
Pinaglabanan Galleries, San Juan, Metro Manila, Philippines
1984 "ASEAN Intergallery Shows"
sponsored by the Asean Institute of Art, Rear Room Gallery, Manila, Philippines
1982 "Hearts and Cacti"Galerie Bleue, Makati, Metro Manila, Philippines
1979 "Cacti and Other Terra-Cottas"Galerie Bleue, Makati, Metro Manila, Philippines
1977 “If Joaquin, then Villa; or Busts!”
Sining Kamalig Gallery, Manila, Philippines

Group Exhibitions (Selected Listings)

2008 “Filipina as Artist and Feminist”
Slocumb Galleries, East Tennessee State University, U.S.A.
2008 “Manyika Ko”
The Podium, Mandaluyong City, Philippines
2007 “Walong Filipina”
Liongoren Art Gallery, Cubao, Quezon City, Philippines
2007 “Pottery Lifestyle Exhibition”
Shangrila, Philippines
2006 “Ode to the Pasig River”
Ayala Museum, Makati City, Philippines
2005 “20th Asian International Art Exhibition”
Ayala Museum, Philippines
2004 "21/21 Vision"
Crossroad 77 Convention Center, Quezon City, Philippines
2001 “Who Owns Women’s Bodies?”
Bulwagang Juan Luna, CCP, Manila, Philippines
1999 “The Art of 30”
Hotel Intercontinental, Makati City, Philippines
1999 "Queenly Matter"
Third Space, Quezon City, Philippines
1998 "Master's Touch"
Ayala Museum, Makati City, Philippines
1996 "Noel! Noel! Images of Christmas"
Hotel Intercontinental, Manila, Philippines
1995 "Shaking Hands Across the Seas, Japanese-Filipino Art"Hyatt Regency, Manila, Philippines
1995 "Asian Modernism"
Japan Foundation Asean Center, Manila, Tokyo, Bangkok, Jakarta
1994 "Doxology," First Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art
Brisbane, Australia
1994 "Handog" (Christian Artists)G-Designs Gallery, Shangri-La EDSA Plaza Hotel, Philippines
1994 "Twenty-Five Years of Inter-Continental Hotel" Manila Inter-Continental Hotel, Makati City, Philippines
1994 "Walong Filipina Artists"Liongoren Art Gallery, SM Megamall, Philippines
1993 "First Asian-Pacific Triennial" Queenly Matter, Third Space, Quezon City, Philippines
1993 "Walong Filipina Artists"Liongoren Art Gallery, SM Megamall, Mandaluyong City, Philippines
1992 "Sculpture in the Philippines"
Metropolitan Museum of Manila, Philippines
1991 "Walong Filipina" Liongoren Art Gallery, Cubao, Quezon City, Philippines
1990 "Thirteen Artists Awards"Cultural Center of the Philippines - Main Gallery, Manila, Philippines
1989 "Banaag: Currents in Philippine Art"Bulwagang Juan Luna, (Main Gallery), CCP, Manila, Philippines
1989 "Third Asian Art Show"Fukuoka Art Museum, Fukuoka City, Japan
1986 "CAP Women’s Art Show" (Concerned Artists of the Philippines)City Gallery, Manila, Philippines
1982 "Paperworks"Shoemart Showrooms, Makati City, Philippines
1979 "Philippine Studio Pottery"Design Center of the Philippines, CCP Complex, Manila, Philippines
1978 "Madonna & Child"Galerie Bleue, Makati, Metro Manila, Philippines
1977 "CCP Annual Black and White Show"Main Gallery, CCP Manila, Philippines
1977 "The Philippine Nude"Manila Peninsula Hotel, Makati City, Philippines
1975 "Ceramics Art Council of the Philippines"Philamlife Pavilion, Manila, Philippines
1974 "Society of Philippine Sculptors 2nd Annual"
Manila, Philippines
1973 "Art Association of the Philippines Annual Show"Solidaridad Galleries, Manila, Philippines

Selected Portraits

Nikki Coseteng
Odette Alcantara
Gilda Cordero-Fernando
Nestor Mata
Jose Garcia Villa
Nick Joaquin
Eugenio Lopez, Jr.
Celia Molano
Teodora Valencia
Tingting Cojuanco
Ambeth Ocampo
Paulina Malay
Robby Lopez
Adrian Cristobal
Abe Cruz
Nick Tiongson
Lisa Ongpin

Selected Public Monuments

St. Paul Group of Sculptures (7 pieces)
St. Paul de Chartres, Antipolo City
Ignatius of Loyola
Ateneo High School, Loyola Heights, Q.C.
Carlos P. Romulo
UN Avenue corner Roxas Blvd., Manila
Mayor Arsenio Lacson
Roxas Blvd., Manila
Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino
Roxas Blvd., Manila
Evelio Javier
Roxas Blvd., Manila
Marcelo H. del Pilar / Plaridel
Plaridel Plaza, Quirino Ave., Manila
Chief Justice Jose Abad-Santos
Supreme Court of the Philippines on Padre Faura St., Manila
Chief Justice Cayetano Arellano
Supreme Court of the Philippines on Padre Faura St., Manila
Pres. Manuel L. Quezon
Baler, Aurora
Florencio Abad Couple
Batanes
Tribute to the Seafarer
Baywalk, Roxas Blvd., Manila
Betty Go-Belmonte
Quezon City
Selected Works
Cactii and Hearts
Bleeding Hearts
Migrants
Susana and the Elders
Amor Brujo
Still Life with Cezanne on Kiri's 6th Birthday
Picasso Y Yo
Philippine Gothic
House on Fire
Piscean Deluge
Thinking Nude
Filipina Revolutionaria
Maranao Suite
Doxology
Cutting Onions Always Makes Me Cry
Thirst

Conferences / Workshops Attended

2007 “2nd Dumaguete Open Biennial Terracotta Art Festival”
Dumaguete City, Philippines
1998 National Commission for Culture and the Arts, “Earth and Fire”
Iligan City, Philippines
1995 “Fourth World Conference on Women”
China
(Undated) “Earth and Fire: Ceramic Workshop and Competition”
Korea
(Undated) Christian Artists Conference
Chiangmai, Thailand

Affiliations

1995 Philippine Women Artists Collective
1994 ISACC (Institute for Studies in Asian Church and Culture)
1986 Women’s Media Circle
1983 Concerned Artists of the Philippines (CAP)
1991 Co-founded KASIBULAN (Kababaihan ng Sining at BagongSibol ng Kalayaan), women visual artists organization
1983 Co-founded KALAYAAN (Katipunan ng Kababaihan Para saKalayaan), nationwide feminist women’s group
1976 Organized Student Art LaboratorySt. Paul College, Quezon City
1973-1994 Society of Philippine Sculptors
1976-1982 Potters’ Guild of the Philippines
1973-1978 Art Association of the Philippines
1973-1976 Instructor in Philosophy and English
St. Paul College, Quezon City
Other Works
2006 Design and execution: Trophy, "2007 Maningning Miclat Art Awards"
Maningning Miclat Foundation, Philippines
2006 Design and execution: Trophy, "2006 Maningning Miclat Art Awards"
Liongoren Gallery, Cubao, Quezon City, Philippines
2005 Design and execution, together with daughter Aba: Trophy,
Communication Foundation for Asia Awards Night and Film-showing
1995 Set, Costume design "Kantada ng Babaeng Mandirigma"
World Conference of Women, Huairou, Beijing, China
1994 Stage, set and costume design --
"Kantada ng Babaeng Mandirigma"
CCP-NCCA Production
1992 Stage Design "Susan Magno Concert"
CCP Little Theater, Manila
1992 Script and narration, "Think Like a Mountain"
16 mm. film documentary
1992 Costume design for "Daragang Magayon"
CCP Women's Desk Production, CCP
1991 Set and stage design for feminist monologue,
"LORENA" Bulwagang Gantimpala, CCP
1991 Produced and acted in "YUTA, Earth Art of Julie Lluch-Dalena"
16 mm. film, 25 minutes for Mowelfund
1990 Design and execution: Trophy, Alfredo Navarro Salangga Journalism Award
UP Creative Writing
1988 Design and Execution: Trophy, "Gawad CCP para sa Telebisyon"
Cultural Center of the Philippines, Manila
1986 Design and execution: Trophy, Women's Media Circle's
Outstanding Men and Women Awards

Reviews / Partial List

"Julie Lluch's City in Terra Cotta" by Juaniyo Arcellana
Starweek (cover story) pp. 3-5, 6/3/2007

"Julie Lluch: Rites of Paasage, right of way" by Robert Paulino
The Philippine Star, 6/13/1994

"A New Look at Julie Lluch" by Ike Arevalo
Sunday Standard Magazine Vol.6 No. 31 p. 6, 5/15/1994

"Julie's Feat of Clay" by Odette Alcantara
Sunday Inquirer Magazine, Vol. 6 No. 12, Cover &pp. 28-29, 5/26/1991

"Art as Extension of the Artist" by Mary Bessie Lee
Gloss pp. 8-9, 5/26/1991

"Portrait of the Artist as a Woman and Filipino" by Pet Cleto
The Sunday Times Magazine, 7/16/1989

"Challenging the Masters"
Asiaweek p.48, 4/21/1989

"The art of immobility" by Fanny Haydee Llego
Midweek p. 29, 4/6/1988

"Julie Lluch's terra-cotta women without men" by Emmanuel Torres
PDI, Lifestyle p. D2 and D6 3/9/1998

"Quiet Revolution" by Alya Honasan
Sunday Inquirer Magazine p.10, 3/8/1998

"Remembering the Soltice" by Jeannie Javelosa
The Manila Chronicle, Life and Entertainment, 7/6-12/1991

"Julie Figures Women" by Michaela Fenix
Sunday Globe Magazine, 3/6/1988

"First Stirrings" by Delia D. Aguilar
Midweek p. 33, 10/21/1987

"Ceramics goes feminist and witty" by Alice G. Guillermo, 3/24/1985

"The Tactile Art of Julie Lluch" by Augusta de Almedda
WHO Vol. IV No. 53 p. 25, 5/15/1982

"Works filled with sly wit, erotic humor" by Amadis Guerrero
Times Journal, 11/28/1979

"Crystalline evocations of Dark Earth" by Mara L. Hermano

"A Way with Clay" by Dong A. de los Reyes, pp. 82-83

"Verisimilitude: Portraits of Julie Lluch" by Wilfred Noriega Marbella

"The gospel in terra cotta according to Miss Julie" by Ruben Defeo

"Julie Lluch's Terra Cotta Tribute to Maranao Women" by Ruben Defeo

"Julie Past the Angry Stage" by Chula M. Rodriguez

Awards / Recognition

2006 Plaque of Appreciation for being one of the judges in the "2006 Metrobank Art & Design Excellence: National Competition"
Metrobank Foundation, Pasay City

2006 Certificate of Appreciation for being one of the judges in the "2006 Maningning Miclat Art Awards"
Liongoren Gallery, Cubao, Quezon City

1997 Araw ng Maynila Sining Kalinangan Award
Given by Manila City Government

1995 Most Outstanding Woman Artist
Awarded by Quezon City Government

1992 First Prize, "Think Like a Mountain"
CCP Gawad Awards for film documentary

1992 Thirteen Artists Award given by
Cultural Center of the Philippines

1992 Outstanding Citizenship in Art
Given by City of Iligan

1991 Golden Award for Visual Design and Best Film for "YUTA"
Given by KRITIKA

1991 Best Short Film, Gawad Urian for "YUTA"
Given by the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino

1991 Best Experimental Film for "YUTA" given by
CCP Gawad para sa Alternatibong Pelikula

1991 Best Short Film for "YUTA" given by the
Film Academy of the Philippines

1978 3rd Prize, Abbot Lighter - Sculpture Competition
Given by the Art Association of the Philippines

References:

Artist's File
Galleria Duemila File
Willie Marbella File

Compiled by:

Ina A.F. Baino
for comments/corrections, email: inabaino@yahoo.com

Goals of Kulay-Diwa

To discover and promote the works of talented, young and deserving Filipino Artist;

To serve as a cultural outpost and make the arts more accessible to the fast-growing communities South of Manila; and

To foster cultural interaction and exchanges with the local regions and other countries.

Kulay(Color)

Diwa(Spirit, Thought)

Intellectual Property Philippines Reg. no. 4-2010-990154

DTI Reg. no. 01166724

TIN: 200672743000

Managing Director: Roberto San Agustin Nolasco

Contact person: Bobbit

Web Hosting by Yahoo!

Kulay-Diwa Gallery of Philippine Contemporary Art
25 Lopez Avenue, Lopez Village,Sucat
Paranaque City, Metro Manila 1700
Philippines
ph: Landline: (632)8260574
bobbit@kulay-diwa.com