Cosmic harmony in Nestor Vinluan’s home

Everyone who passes by the cozy white house in Filinvest East Antipolo would instantly recognize that an artist lives there. The "fence" is a veritable sculptural installation of spheres, grids, and frames made of cement and river stones, one that is repainted in a different hue very year. Even the entrance gate is artistic, concrete piles set with river pebbles and painted brilliant white, set off against blue and red cement spheres on the ground, as well as decorative palm trees.

This is the home of Nestor Olarte Vinluan, who at 53 is the youngest former Dean of UP Fine Arts, and a committed abstractionist who has not forgotten his dedication to his craft. Nestor shares his home with an equally artistic family: his wife, the former Linda Romualdez (granddaughter of Associate Justice Norberto Romualdez), is an interior designer and accomplished weaver; while son Paulo has been making waves as a young artist in his own right. Daughter Liv Victoria is an accomplished musician, a trait she probably got from her father. Few people know that Nestor is an expert on the flute, and has a wide collection of fluted instruments to show (not to mention the talent to play them).

The intimate space of the house is divided into a public area in the front, with the front porch, sala and dining area; and the study, studios, and bedrooms at the back and second floor. The transition is defined by the kitchen-bar. The back garden has given way to the Vinluans’ studio requirements, its pebble-studded cement floor providing space for Nestor’s mural painting sessions, while Paulo’s artistic requirements have persuaded the Vinluans to build a small outhouse-studio in the back garden, facing Nestor’s studio.

But life also takes equal emphasis: the garden is adorned with a life-sized grotto of the Virgin of Lourdes, indicating the pious nature of the Vinluan household (Nestor and Linda are members of Couples for Christ); and antique furniture points the way to the Vinluan’s family heritage: his from Pozorrubio, Pangasinan; hers from Leyte and pre-War Manila.

This melding of art and life in the house is said to characterize Nestor’s body of work itself, which has withstood the vicissitudes of art history, redeemed after the battle between radicals of abstraction and figure painting have faded in these post-modern times. The Philippine Star visited the Vinluans recently to take stock of Nestor’s career as artist and educator, and has pleasantly noted that his untiring grace and humility have allowed him and his family to become both closer, and more dedicated to their work as professionals of art, as well as champions of a giving life.

The Philippine Star: Who designed your house?

Nestor Vinluan: It was designed and built by architects Tina and Antonio Turalba of the Active Group. They were my patrons, you see, and sometimes they paid for purchases of my paintings with land or services. It was built in 1987, and Linda and I have been involved in its decoration and transformation since. I redesigned the front yard and fence in 1996 and 2000, incorporating elements of my newest series of works, "Of Earth, Sky, and the Spirit," which I exhibited at SM Megamall.

The idea of putting concrete pylons studded with pebbles and painted in bright colors was first realized when I was commissioned by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to do a public sculpture for their main office in 1995. I made it so that people could sit down amid the environment and combined natural forms like columns and spherical rocks in a mandala-like circular pattern. I’ve always been fascinated by mixing the spiritual with the symbolic in my art, and it is this dedication to a spiritual wholeness that characterizes the forms and ideas of my work, which you can also see in the house.

I use the spherical forms in both the large concrete pieces, which are molded and built up with surface texturing, as well as the smaller river stones and pebbles. This enhances the spirituality of the spaces and objects in the environment, and reflects a totality, a wholeness in feeling that I share with my family and guests. It is contrasted by the vertical elements of my painted poles and grids, which are transcendental and meditative in nature.

How did your style originate?

You can say that all of my work is divided into two major motifs: the biomorphic or organic-based such as the sphere, which I equate with animal forms and life itself; and geometric, such as lines and grids. The biomorphic alludes to the symbols of life, the natural world, and the visible environment; while the geometric provides openings of spaces for introspection, concentration, and reaching out for the invisible. The grid is not a framing device, but rather defines an opening to emptiness that is mystical.

I have always liked to read mystical literature even when I was still a student in UP back in the Sixties. I read literature from Herman Hesse to Franz Kafka, Timothy Leary, and Carlos Castañeda. My parents, both schoolteachers in Pozorrubio (my father was the town’s high school principal), were very encouraging of my studies in Fine Arts, although they would have preferred Advertising so that I could have a viable career. I attribute my artistic inclination to my family, especially my mother and brother.

When I entered UP in 1965, I had the opportunity to be taught by the best artistic minds, people like Virginia Flor-Agbayani, Carlos Castro, and Ildefonso Marcelo. The most profound influences in my art style were Constancio Bernardo, Jose Joya, Rod Paras-Perez, and H.R. Ocampo, whom I frequently visited in his Maypajo residence when I was a student. It was they who directed my lifelong attention to abstraction as a mystical way of depicting reality.

I was one of the few Painting majors around, I think there were three of us in our batch. I took a break to discover myself, and develop my skills and vision as an artist, almost like a recluse. Coming back in 1969, I hooked up with my art barkada, who were then composed of Tony Pajaro, Tony Daroy, Lito Carating, and Alfredo Liongoren. The period from 1965 to 1970 is what I call my "Intense Period," when I was making expressionistic paintings that Prof. Nieves Epistola called "mercurial," because I depicted the social conditions of the times. It was my searching period, when I was experimenting with my painting style.

What moderated my temperament was my musicality. I have played the guitar since I was in high school, and I rediscovered it in my junior year with a wooden recorder. My getup at the time included a satchel bag full of music instruments, and a book, usually Allan Watts. Although I had long hair, wore batik clothing and sandals, I was clean-living. I never did drugs. In fact, in the 1980s, I participated in TV advertisements against doing drugs. I’ve always believed that art, if it is mature, should turn me on, rather than get an artificial high with drugs.

The year 1971 was a decisive year in my artistic development. I participated in a group show with Daroy, Carating, and Liongoren at the Intercontinental Hotel, which established our reputations as artists, as well as a revolutionary show at the Red Gallery at Farmer’s Market, which would be closed upon the declaration of martial law. A two-man show with Carating at Galerie Bleu Rustan’s caught the attention of collectors and curators, and I was also included in a summer exhibit at the CCP.

This year saw the beginnings of my definite style, which was composed of abstracted female figures done in dark tones of red and green. It also showcased my techniques of painting in textured and modulated colors, which I discovered in the process of artmaking. The themes were also formed here, titles like "Reflection" that I still use today.

In 1972, I concentrated on nature and environment, with my return to Pangasinan, and renewing my knowledge of the land and its unique qualities. I painted landscape-like pieces that were heavily abstracted, emotional or expressive in nature, but very meditative. I thought of layering colors together to simulate the feeling of different thoughts put one atop another. The colors were malalim: dark greens, blues, purples, and reds. I also mastered my texturing effect of putting different paint layers together to form different surface effects, which was by then modulated and mixed with the washout technique. I used square or rectangular formats, which harked back to the mandala motif. The format would change later on with octagonal and arched formats (1975). I also experimented with conceptual pieces, like the door installation I did for Shop 6 in 1974. The use of a Magritte-like Surrealist approach in that piece encouraged me to do abstracted "floating rock" effects in my abstract pieces, which was delineated with a frame-like tromp l ‘oeil painted motif. This is what most people remember me for starting in 1975, with my lavender-colored paintings with various cut shapes.

When did you settle down as a family man?

I married Linda in 1975. Our first child, Lel Cecila, was born in 1976, followed by Paulo in 1980, and Liv Victoria in 1987. Paulo was born in New York, where we stayed while I was finishing my Masters of Fine Arts at the Pratt Institute. Linda also learned her weaving skills in the U.S. When we returned in 1982, I taught full time at UP, and have stayed put ever since. I didn’t stop growing, though. I had solo exhibits yearly from 1983 to 1987. That year, I showed my poles for the first time as part of an integrated installation of paintings, poles, and stones, all done in black, at the Luz Gallery.

It was my way of experimenting with the limits of painting, as I broke down the definition of painting as that done only on canvas. I painted the poles, stuck them in diagonals between the canvas and the floor, and painted the stones infront of the wall pieces. I created a complete painting installation, utilizing the motifs of the past, and my musings of the materials that I have rediscovered in Pozorrubio. We have a mountainside farm there, you see, and all these materials are found there.

The poles remind me of the stilts of the bahay kubo in our place, while the stones are found all over the landscape, especially along riverbanks. When we built the house, we combined our talents and ideas: Linda thought of the Vigan floor tiles and furniture pieces, while I designed the exterior landscapes. I integrated the stones, and later on the spheres, based on my artistic motifs of the biomorphic/organic, so as to remind me of the elements of nature: the sea, the clouds, and the rocks.

The sphere, which I first made in 1987, is a Surrealist form that I equate with mysticism, with the higher order of calm found in the cosmos. You can see it in the shapes of planets, moons, and stars. I’m an avid astronomer, and I integrate the cosmic bodies in my paintings, especially those done starting 1990, with the circular element dominating the composition, and composed of splattering and texturized elements that layer on top of one another, or are washed out. Sometimes, we have visitors from the nearby nunnery, and the sisters meditate infront of this painting! They say that it is very peaceful and transcendental. I guess they sympathize with the spirituality that I suggest in this work.

My current pieces combine my concern for abstract elements like lines and spheres with a total spirituality in concept. It is a feeling that is aimed at the direction of thinking and doing goodness to one another. My poles are meant to mark the earth, define its space, and allow the eye to move around in radial patterns following the installation.

I paint them in order to extend the concept of painting as a symbolic gesture of evoking particular expressions and feelings to the objects. I felt that in order to extend the feeling of spirituality, I must also become part of the process. That is why we are members of Couples for Christ. For me, it completes the sense of belonging that I have of the earth, and uniting it with the concerns of the Divine. The prayerful attitude has sustained us, and its power of healing was the route in which we entered it, and made a part of. I have accepted that goodness of oneself to others allows me to be kinder and gentler, and it is the search for wholeness that I have incorporated in my concept of the cosmos.

My art is a personal statement of my wholeness of being, of a universality of feeling good about myself, and how I must relate to my colleagues and other members of the society.