MANILA, PHILIPPINES– Ayala Museum, as part of its continuing efforts to bring the museum experience online through Ayala Museum Virtual, presents the virtual re-mounting of their 2017 exhibition Arturo Luz: First Light.
Curated by historian, scholar, and educator Dr. Ambeth R. Ocampo, this 2017 exhibition was organized to celebrate the 90th birthday of Arturo Luz and his 60th year as a professional artist. Arturo Luz: First Light marks Ayala Museum’s first virtual gallery experience and it goes live in time for Luz’s 94th birthday.
First Light traces an arc from the genre, color, and pictorial representation of Luz’s early works in the 1950s to the muted colors and simplified lines and shapes of the 1960s.
In 1952, Arturo Luz created a series of paintings that marked the beginning of his life as a professional artist. The paintings from this time typically depict scenes from Philippine life.
From this first figurative phase, Luz in the 1960s progressed from exuberance of color and subject to a simplification into line and form. The transition of his work into having a more minimal and architectural dimension would later become the hallmark of his work.
This exhibition is part of Ayala Museum’s Images of Nation program which showcases works by Filipino artists who have been named National Artists in the Visual Arts. Its primary aim is to share the extraordinary vision and formal excellence embodied in this award.
Arturo Luz: First Light will be virtually on show until January 31, 2021. The exhibition can be viewed at ayalamuseum.org/first-light.
About the artist
Arturo Luz (b. 1926), as described in his biography in the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) website, has been a painter, sculptor, and designer who was conferred the National Artist Award in 1997. Luz created masterpieces that exemplify an ideal of sublime austerity in expression and form. From the Carnival series of the late 1950s to the recent Cyclist paintings, Luz produced works that elevated Filipino aesthetic vision to new heights of sophisticated simplicity.
