Bonhui Uy in a fairy tale of modern industry
In Filipino-Chinese Bonhui Uy’s past life, he would be found slumped on his desk in an office building in New York City, working on architectural designs/illustrations for the likes of I.M. Pei (designed the Louvre Pyramid, smartly dressed, occasionally showed drafts to Bonhui drawn on tissue paper), Philip Johnson (designed the Glass House in Connecticut, was always in a tailored suit, sometimes took singular bites of donuts) as well as other iconic figures—who can be considered the Avengers, the A-Team of architecture.
“It’s a fairy tale of modern industry right before your very eyes,” describes Sari Ortiga of The Crucible Gallery, which houses Bonhui’s current exhibition.
Bonhui, born and raised in Bacolod, graduated as an electrical engineer from Taiwan National Cheng Kung University in 1964 and received his Master of Science in Tropical Architecture from Pratt University in New York in 1967. He did architectural renderings and consultation work for the aforementioned architects. At certain points on his work timeline, he set up his own studio in NYC; moved to Honolulu and became a design partner; was summoned back to the Big Apple when his self-published book, Architectural Drawings & Leisure Sketches, got picked up by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA); was scouted by no less than Edward Larrabee Barnes.
Bonhui, now retired, calls Hawaii his home and spends his time drawing, sketching on his iPad, and sculpting whimsical, fanciful animals. He’s gone from Architecture to Zebras, an entire alphabet of animals, fruits, furniture and everyday marvels in between.
“Picasso said every child is an artist, but then you grow up and where do you go, right? Everybody becomes so serious,” remarks Bonhui, who is in Manila for two shows: at Ayala Museum (“Works of Whimsy,” on view until July 14) and at The Crucible Gallery (“Collages,” on view until June 30).
Kids are spontaneous, he insists. They draw without thinking. With adults, logic gets in the way.
“I’d like to draw with a sense of innocence, but I cannot do it. I try to imitate kids. When I babysit my granddaughter, she tells me, ‘Kongkong, let’s draw.’ By the time I sit down, she’s already finished.”
So, for Bonhui to draw something with childlike innocence (the crux of his art practice), what does he do?
“Sometimes, I use my left hand to make the lines crooked (laughs).” Exactitude, clinical precision are sometimes the enemies of wonder and joy.
“When you’re practicing (architecture) or designing, you are constrained. Now I am totally free. Fine art should be loose.”
Like birds who are staring, perching or winging omni-presently in his works. So, where do the animals in his art come from?
“Can you imagine going from buildings to animals? My wife and I seldom go to the zoo. They’re all from my imagination,” says Bonhui.
His wife Leonard adds, “And we don’t even have a pet (laughs).”
Bonhui does not gravitate toward the works of masters that are too dark and angst-ridden. “I feel that art should be fun and playful. That’s how I look at it. Artworks should make you feel good, happy.”
He is attracted to pieces that are simple and yet have distilled forms into their quintessence, to the point of eloquence.
The artist stresses how there is a fine line between artful illustrations and cartoons. “Fine art, you create it. You see something, you modify it. I simplify the faces of animals, make them a little silly—in a subtle way. Not humorous. I don’t overdo it.”
For his Ayala Museum show, Uy’s oeuvre includes sculptures made of recycled materials, reimagined as playful human and animal figures. According to the exhibition statement: “Configured in ingenious ways, his sculptures are deceptively modest, but precise and attentive to shape and color. A large-scale version of his rooster sculpture will stand proudly at the street-facing entrance of Ayala Museum, while some other animal sculptures will be ‘released’ in the Zen Garden fronting the museum’s mall entrance.”
The point is all about seeing the “potential in everyday objects and scenes.”
For his Crucible show, Bonhui presents his collages.
Ortiga explains, “This is Bonhui’s second one-man show in our gallery. It features works that are representative of his whimsical style— collages, paintings and tapestries. His images are fantastic. What impressed us about Bonhui is that this whimsical guy’s background is centered on doing very detailed architectural drawings. The drawings he did for Philip Johnson, you’d see right off that they’re in themselves works of art. It’s like the crossing of freshwater and saltwater. ‘No, it’s art… no, it’s architecture.’ It’s a crossover, it’s standing upon a threshold, so to speak.”
And what started as whimsical drawings (with birds making the most appearances out of all the animals) have become equally whimsical sculptures.
“The three-dimensional approach happened only after 20 years of making art,” informs Bonhui. “All of a sudden, one day, I told myself, ‘I’m an architect. I should do something that can stand.” Since he knows a thing (or tons) about structural design, he figured out he only needed two points to turn his pieces upright. This gave the architect-turned-artist an entirely new perspective.
Boxes, cans, shoeboxes, old newspapers and magazines, discarded sheet metal… all become part of the anatomy of his creatures, all forming deceptively simple yet uniquely shaped, eye-catching structures of whimsy.
Like building blocks.
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“Bonhui’s Works of Whimsy” and “Bonhui’s Collages” are currently on view at the Ayala Museum and The Crucible Gallery, respectively. The Ayala Museum is at Greenbelt Park, Ayala Center, Makati City. The Crucible Gallery is on the fourth floor, SM Megamall A, Mandaluyong City.