Reviews

 

The Philippine Daily Inquirer- January 23, 2006

LEWANDA LIM
Her painterly fabrications

THE DIASPORA OF FILIPINO BRAINS AND talents doesn't happen only in a few fields such as theater, education, medicine, science and technology. The sad fact is, it extends even to art. You keep wondering why an accomplished artist like Butch Payawal, for example, no longer holds exhibits, until you learn the man has gone to the Middle East for some advertising job. Multiply such incident by scores and you'd have a fair estimate of the loss to Philippine art.
Fortunately, often these artists do not stop from art-making, and living away from their homeland only intensifies their art, so that when they return they bring with them powerful works. Such is the case of US-based painter and printmaker Lewanda Lim, who is holding her first solo exhibit in the country this month. Lim graduated from the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts, where she taught for many years before moving to Canada in the mid-1970s. She took her master's degree in Studio Art at the State University of New York, and held solo exhibitions in Massachusetts, Philadelphia, New York. Now living in Ohio, Lim has returned to the local art scene after almost 30 years to mount "Lewanda's Fabrications," 18 pieces in assorted fabrics, until Jan. 24 in West Gallery at the Artwalk, 4/L Bldg. A, SM Megamall, Mandaluyong City.
These are fabric collages of variegated hues and forms, teetering between tapestry and carpet. Not quite Pacita Abad's trapunto art, and far from Imelda Cajipe-Endaya's assemblages of textile swatches, Lim's is nevertheless painterly in design.
While she explores in oil and acrylic and in print (collagraph, etching, monoprint) a variety of styles from abstract expressionism to realism (still lifes, landscapes, genre scenes with political or environmental commentaries), these collages are chiefly abstracted yet hinting at figures.
In the geometrical abstraction of "Marine Reverie," for instance, one perceives identifiable shapes, free-floating forms suggesting plants and creatures one can see under the sea.
These pieces are notable for their bold color tonality, as in the contrasting harmonies of "Marine Reverie" and "Easy Rhythm." The former's cool harmony of blue, green and violet accented with splotches of red and yellow is a stark contrast to-indeed, a reverse of-the latter's rich warm harmony of red, orange and yellow accentuated with blue and green.
These collages were created in six years. The artist reveals how she came up with her technique: "One day, I was challenged by the tangles of knitting and embroidery threads that settled in my fabric and sewing boxes. And I didn't want to throw them away. Suddenly a bulb lit up in my head, and, presto, I started cutting up the threads and randomly dropping them on a plain fabric." The exhibit's information sheet relates: "She ran them on the sewing machine in all directions, until she achieved an entirely new surface and fabric, and added different kinds of fabric to create forms that would anchor her compositions. Thus 'Lewanda's Original Wearable Art' was born, gracing the Textile Museum in Washington, DC, and a prestigious artisan gallery along Madison Avenue in New York."

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MALAYA LIVING, January 27,2006

Lewanda’s fantastic fabrication

From afar, one might easily mistake Lewanda Lim’s vibrant creations as art pieces made from oils or acrylic. But upon closer inspection, they reveal a fascinating spectacle of thread and cloth depicting a joyous fabrication of Lewanda’s effervescent imagination.

The launch of "Lewanda’s Fabrications," an exhibit of her celebrated fabric collages held recently at the West Gallery at SM Megamall, became a homecoming party for Lewanda. Having lived in America for nearly 30 years, the exhibit was an opportunity for her to be among the people she holds dear. It was also a chance to share a piece of her self in a country that, in her heart, she has never left behind.

Lewanda’s works are a spirited mishmash of various textiles cut into different shapes and sizes. They are then sewn on a sheet of fabric which acts as a canvas and covered by a dizzying blanket of thread.

"I do my fabric collages very spontaneously. As I go along, I improvise. Basta if I like the color and the texture of the fabric, I’ll try to use it in my collage," she confesses.

She may use silk, cotton or whatever she fancies from a flea market expedition, a mall-wide sale or her very own closet. "Yung ibang tela nga galing sa ukay ukay!" she adds. But they all pass through the chattering teeth of her sewing machine which, she describes candidly, is at the throes of severe mechanical exhaustion.

Of her 18 pieces on exhibit which took six years to complete, most feature abstracted shapes and colors. One piece in particular, "Seeking a School of Thought," is replete with fabrics and threads of purple, her favorite color.

Her most prominent theme, though, is water. On fabric collages, she relives her youth in Cagayan de Oro where they used to live near the sea. To this day, her fascination for marine life and her yearning to explore the great seas still remain.

"To me, the sea and its biota are reminders of home and my childhood. They form a truly captivating and magical world, and as an artist, I mine it to feed my imagination and creative urges."

Aside from fabric collages, Lewanda keeps her approach fresh and vibrant by indulging in other creative media like acrylics, oils and prints (collagraphs, etching, and monoprints). She also fights monotony by exploring many styles from abstract expressionism, semi-abstractions, realistic landscapes and still-life works, to political and environmental commentaries.

Lim graduated from the College of Fine Arts of the University of the Philippines and taught there for many years before moving with her family to Canada in 1976. Later, they migrated to the United States where she earned her Master’s degree in Studio Art from the States University of New York.

She has actively participated in the US art circuit, having had solo exhibits in Philadelphia, Massachusetts and New York. Her vests dubbed "Lewanda’s Original Wearable Art" have graced the Textile Museum in Washington, DC and Julies Artisan Gallery along Madison ave. in New York City.

Lewanda is also a published poet. Her works are present in two anthologies: "Going Home to a Landscape: Writing by Filipinas", edited by Marianne Villanueva and Virginia Cerenio (CalyxBooks); and "From the Listening Place" by Margaret Blanchard (Astarte Shell Press).