Premier sculptor Julie Lluch’s solo exhibit billed as “In the Fullness of Time” opened exactly a week ago at Tall Gallery, Finale Art File Warehouse 17, La Fuerza, Pasong Tamo, Makati. Most of the works are in cast marble with acrylic pigment, her newfound medium, while others are in terracotta.
They represent a year’s work, interspersed with her commissioned public art sculpture of heroes, statesmen and other personalities. Completed last June were bronze statues of Dr. Jose Rizal, Pio Valenzuela, and Josephine Bracken for the Jose Rizal Shrine and Museum in Dapitan City. Her last solo sculpture exhibit was in 2008, “Retrospective: Yuta” at the CCP.
Over the past 18 years, her work has mostly been public sculpture. Last year saw bronze statues of President Corazon Aquino for Batanes and Francisco Balagtas Baltazar for Orion, Bataan. In 2014, she did bronze statues of Dr. Jose Rizal for Calamba, Laguna, Pacita Abad for Batanes, and a recast of Mayor Arsenio Lacson on Roxas Blvd., the original of which was done in 2002 but had been damaged by a storm. It was in 1998 when her first public statue was installed on Rizal Blvd., that of Carlos P. Romulo, which stands on the corner of United Nations Avenue.
Other statues and monuments, from 2000 to 2013, are of Chief Justices Cayetano Arellano and Jose Abad-Santos at the Supreme Court building on Padre Faura St.; St. Paul de Chartres in Antipolo City (with design and execution done in collaboration with her daughter Aba Lluch Dalena); Marcelo H. del Pilar at Plaridel Plaza on Quirino Ave.; Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Evelio Javier and Tribute to the Seafarer on Roxas Blvd.; President Manuel Luis Quezon in Baler, Aurora; St. Ignatius of Loyola at the Ateneo High School, Loyola Heights, Q.C.; and Apolinario Mabini in Tanauan, Batangas.
“It is a rare privilege for a sculptor to serve one’s country and give honor to our great revered leaders through art,” Julie says.
With this current show, one could say that she has come full circle as an artist. The fullness has been well worth the wait, especially since thematically, the new works revolve around her meditations on time, worship, and the creative force.
As a child, Julie recalls herself to have been constantly “performing.” Sharing her father’s passion for classical music, which he played on the phonograph all day, she took piano, solfeggio and ballet lessons. She won in singing competitions, choreographed and danced Firebird to Stravinsky’s music. She directed plays on stage. But she didn’t paint or sculpt, until she got married.
She says now that marriage and raising a family had initially suppressed her artistic impulses. Without an outlet, she felt that she could only implode. Only art could save her.
She started to paint, but could not continue for some reason. One day she watched a potter demonstrate his craft on TV. The next day, she went to the Philippine House of Ceramics and bought herself a bag of processed clay. Instinctively, she mixed it with water and started kneading. And she has not stopped kneading since.
She joined a workshop on basic ceramics conducted by Leonardo Villaroman. In lieu of mentors, there were close friends whose works inspired her, mostly poets, musicians, and filmmakers.
“Kairos 1” by Julie Lluch
The first bust that she ever did was of her then-partner Danny Dalena. In 1977 she had her first one-person show at Sining Kamalig Gallery, titled “If Joaquin, then Villa; or Busts!” It included portrait sculpture of National Artists Jose Garcia Villa and Nick Joaquin, who came as the guest of honor. In his characteristic booming voice, Nick intoned: “It takes a genius to do a portrait of another genius!” Villa’s brother Oscar came to purchase his bust and brought it to Jose in New York.
Her next solo exhibits, in 1979 and 1982 at Galerie Bleue, were of “Cacti and other Terracottas” and “Hearts and Cacti.” She says now that her phallic and yonic pieces of that period were early stirrings of feminist sensibility, a prelude to the more mature and ideologically informed narrative sculpture like “Picasso y Yo” which came much later.
“My dalliance with the pleasurable clay medium changed my life radically. I enjoyed making those thorny Heart and Cacti sculptures which I did over and over like etudes or exercises to help the fingers become strong and nimble, without much thinking. ‘Picasso y Yo’ is probably my favorite, since I rolled my overlapping identities or roles of woman, wife, mother, artist, and feminist into one to lodge a protest against high art represented by Picasso and the patriarchy. Clay then was called lowly and a cheap medium, and didn’t yet earn the respect accorded the mediums of bronze and marble.” But it was with clay that she has also done portrait-busts of numerous artist/writer-friends.
Now, for the first time, she uses cast marble as a medium, one that she’s just getting acquainted with — its character and behavior. “It is strong, beautiful and lovely to touch, but it is a difficult medium. When working on marble, I am completely dependent on air tools, grinders, routers and yards of sanding materials. To be appreciated, marble must be made as smooth as can be.”
There has also been a shift in perspective. While the show is still centered on woman-ness, the gaze is turned inward, maybe even metaphysically, she says. For the centerpieces, Julie’s three daughters served as models.
The woman in “Kairos 1” (Kiri) falls asleep after reading a book while the couch she is sleeping on is on fire. The woman in “Kairos 2” (Sari) has stepped out of the shower and is texting on her mobile phone while her sandal is burning. In “Kairos 3,” (Aba) strums her ukulele, unmindful of one monkey on her back pulling her hair and another monkey whose tail is aflame.
The three women are frozen in earthly kronos which is historical time. On the other hand, kairos is the “supreme moment” or what Julie says is “God’s opportune time intersecting temporal human affairs, even the insignificant moments when we sleep, read a book, play music or text on the cell phone.”
In Julie’s view, the exhibit’s title “applies perfectly to the fact that the works are soon to be finished, all in God’s perfect time! And purpose too! Time is an intriguing concept, but more than a concept it is a created material reality, a commodity, an entity. We either have time or we don’t; we spend time, borrow time, buy time, waste time, use time.”
Despite the sensuous qualities inherent in the forms and set pieces Julie has conceived, as a passionate Christian she has resolved a personal signification of the act of worship — “as every action or work we do to please and thank God, such as gardening or cleaning house, etc.” And fire is an essential element of worship.
Another striking centerpiece is “Night Spa with Lorca,” where an ape perched on a couch looms over a half-naked woman. It’s in tribute to Federico Garcia Lorca’s “duende,” the powerful art force that Julie says is also what prods her to work. This one is an artwork about art — its deep, dark and gothic side.
In her time of fullness, Julie asserts: “Art and beauty is just as profound. Our work describes and defines us. It gives us our identity. I’m looking for art that one can contemplate on, that evokes beauty, rest, timelessness, and a sense of the absolute. Yes, I do look for God in the art gallery.”