Exhibit highlights the enduring legacy of National Artist Arturo Luz

Exhibit highlights the enduring legacy of National Artist Arturo Luz | Daily Tribune

Renaissance Art Gallery will present the second iteration of Streamlined: The Art of National Artist Arturo Luz at the Art Center, SM Megamall. Curated by artist-critic Cid Reyes, Streamlined II will showcase Luz’s rich and enduring legacy, highlighting his unwavering commitment to impeccable design and disciplined use of color.

In 1951, distinguished art and literary critic Recaredo Demetillo noted, “I must draw attention to the work of Arturo Rogerio Luz. His forms are alive and distinguished; he understands abstraction and austerity, the sense of space and balance. He distorts with intuitive rightness and grace. In other words, he is a real artist.”

At just 17 years old, Luz, declared National Artist in 1997, was already exploring painting and was drawn to form’s simplicity and essential nature. His first work was a portrait of his mother, the renowned interior designer Rosario Dimayuga Luz. As a figurative painter, Luz was inspired by Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo, known for his spare and elongated forms. This influence led Luz to develop his own vocabulary of shapes using plastic lines. He also drew significant inspiration from Swiss artist Paul Klee, who famously described line as “taking a dot for a walk.” This inspiration culminated in Luz’s linear depictions of cyclists, musicians, and carnival performers, including acrobats and jugglers, as well as still-life works featuring boxes, Oriental ceramics, jars, bowls and shells.

By limiting his choice of subjects, Luz could delve into the elegance of visual simplicity, precision, and spatial balance. He began to favor non-traditional materials such as burlap and laminated plywood, and at one point even used broken tiles to create a mosaic for a church altar floor. Eventually, Luz transitioned to pure abstraction through collage, which compelled him to create compositions without representational subjects. This allowed him to focus on the planar qualities of form and surface and the visual tension that arises from achieving a perfectly balanced composition.

In the early 1980s, Luz expanded his subject by traveling throughout Asia and India. His experiences during this pilgrimage inspired many works that featured imaginary landscapes filled with temples, palaces, fortifications, and battlements — all transformed into linear symphonies of monochromatic tones accented by earthy colors like chrome yellow, dark mustard, cardinal red, burnt sienna, bronze and brown.

Luz also demonstrated his administrative skills in the 1980s by managing his eponymous Luz Gallery, the Museum of Philippine Art, the Metropolitan Museum, and the Design Center of the Philippines. Of paramount significance is Luz’s transformation of the native artistic sensibility from festive and flamboyant to restrained and dispassionate.

A limited edition monograph with design and layout by Dopy Doplon and photography by Wig Tysmans will be available to accompany the exhibit.

Streamlined II will run from 3 to 16 June at the Art Center, fourth floor of SM Megamall Building A at the corner of EDSA and Julia Vargas Avenue, Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila.