Rudy Yu's architecture of whimsy

Blind alleys laid out like labyrinths. Steps climbing seemingly to nowhere. Roads crisscrossing and crossbreeding smaller roads. But despite the elaborate shapes and impossible angles, the cityscapes created by Filipino artist Rudy Yu make their own sense, aesthetically. They are cities — some based on Vigan or Venice, some imagined entirely — mapped out playfully, whimsically by an artist who, though inspired by the likes of M.C. Escher and Manuel Baldemor, puts his own idiosyncratic spin on space and matter that occupies it.

Yu is mounting a solo exhibit titled “Roots,” which opens on Aug. 19, 6:30 p.m., at ArtAsia Gallery, fourth floor, SM Megamall A, Mandaluyong City. I learn that, as the title suggests, Yu as an artist is going back to his origins, to an artistic approach of yore.

Artist Rudy Yu goes back to his roots in a solo exhibition at ArtAsia.

“It began over 40 years ago,” Yu shares. He recalls that, as a six-year-old child, Rudy and his parents who reside in Greenhills traveled to Balintawak to visit an aunt two times a week. There, the young boy killed time by drawing on a sheet of paper that his aunt gave him — planes, ships, etc. 

“My journey has been long and storied. And, while it still goes on today, this show is intended to pay homage to the cradle of my art,” he explains.

Here is Rudy Yu’s origin:

His father was born in Golangyu Island in China back in 1928. His mother came from the province of Iloilo where she was born in 1937. Rudy has visited these places, and has devoted himself to painting them lest he forgets his heritage. His education began in Xavier School, known more for producing entrepreneurs and civic leaders. After high school, he enrolled at UST, hoping to become an architect.

 “I always enjoyed using felt-tipped pens, and drew satisfaction from filling up large poster papers with minute details from end to end. Attending the University of Santo Tomas (UST) introduced me to the technical pen, which architects used to render home and structural drawings. This simple pen would define my style to this day.”

A“Binondo Dreams”

He attended the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, California, and graduated in 1989.

“By the time we moved back to Manila, watercolors, dyes, acrylics, gouache, and colored pencils became part of my repertoire. And visiting China years ago, I was drawn to the soul of the island of my father’s birth. I was impressed by the Western-style architecture very prevalent there. I loved the details in every house I saw. I can say the same thing every time we flew down to Iloilo, which was adorned by Spanish-style dwellings undamaged by the war. Trips to the old sections of Manila, like Intramuros and Binondo, stoked my interest because of all the old-style houses. It broke my heart every time one of them got demolished in the name of ‘progress.’”

In 1999, Yu mounted his first exhibition in the Philippines; this was at The Crucible Gallery in SM Megamall.  

For the artist’s show at ArtAsia, he used mainly pen-and-ink as well as watercolors. Rudy’s attention to detail is astounding. Must’ve took ages for each cityscape to be finished, for the aesthetic construction to be completed, so to speak.

Yu explains his current artistic strategy: “Roots is not just about drawing something at every place I have lived in. It also embraces the first and most distinctive art style I have grasped and continues to define me as an artist. The journey continues.”

“Siamese Dawn”

The artist adds that his latest show is also a tribute of sorts to his wife, Ana Maria Lacson Yu, who is a staunch supporter of Rudy’s art. “Without her, I wouldn’t be a fulltime artist. There are very few people in this world who can say they do what they love (every day of their lives).”

Thus, the man soldiers on each day: waking up at 6:30 or 7 a.m., painting until 11 a.m., drinking a fruit-slash-vegetable shake for lunch, and then working until 7 in the evening. When not immersed in his studio in Greenhills, Rudy busies himself with the Xavier Alumni Art Guild where the group is fostering not just the visual arts but also, film, theater, music, literature, even the culinary arts. “We want to build an art tradition at Xavier.”

For his 2011 exhibition, why the need to revisit the past at all?

“When you move forward, and when you try to look at where you’re going, sometimes you need to look back at where you came from — to be able to look forward again. Look at where my dad was born, where my mom came from, at my original style… Not just about going back to my personal past, but my past style as well. Because my art is inevitably going to change again.”

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Rudy Yu’s “Roots” opens on Aug. 19, 6:30 p.m., at ArtAsia Gallery, fourth floor, SM Megamall A, Mandaluyong City. For information, visit www.theruddude.com or call 634-5945.