The First Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

City things 1991 Installation Fukuoka.Japan Junyee ( Luis Yee, Jr) was born in 1942 in Sanghan, Cabadbaran, Agusan del Norte, the Philippines. He studied fine arts at the University of the Philippines and won numerous top prizes in sculpture in theAAP ( Art Association of the Philippines) compe­ titions from 1967. He won the GrandAward in the 1986MP-Rotary Competition and was awarded a research grant on non-commercial wood for sculpture by the National Science Development Board. In 1981 he was named one of the CCP Thirteen Artists awardees. Philippine delegate to the 12th ParisBiennale and to the 3rd ASEAN Sculpture Symposium andWorkshop, Junyee has also been Artist­ in-Residence at the University of the Philip­ pines in Los Banos, situated beside the scenicMount Makilingwhich he calls home. Junyee has held a series of solo exhi­ bitions: 'Balag', outdoor installations with indigenous materials, University of the Philippines campus, 1970; 'Malabayabas at iba pang Kahoy', outdoor exhibition of non­ traditional wood for sculpture, coconut and other wood, Luneta, 1976; 'Wood Things', installation with indigenous materials, Cultural Center of the Philippines ( CCP) Small Gallery, 1981; 'Urban Autumn', in- THE PHILIPPINES JUNYEE digenous materials, Sining Kamalig Gallery, Manila, 1983; 'Ancient Bloom', outdoor installation with indigenous materials, Development Academy of the Philippines grounds, 1988; 'Lupao', outdoor installation with indigenous materials, University of the Philippines grounds; 'Junyee Functionals', functional sculpture, Alliance Fram;:aise of Manila, 1990; 'Acid Rain', installation with indigenous materials, Alliance Franc;:aise, 1990; 'City Things', outdoor installation, Asia Month Celebration, Fukuoka, Japan, 1991. It was Junyee's sizeable body of work in indigenous or vernacular materials which definitely established this trend in three­ dimensional expression. Domiciled in the forested slopes of Makiling, the artist lives with his materials and creates an art integral to a life in nature. No longer a sculpture or solid mass brought into shape by carving or mouldingprocesses, his work assembles, binds or weaves together intovariousshapes such organicmaterials as dried pods, twisted roots, banana pulp, coconut shells, twigs and coconut fibre. Not of durable substance as stone or metal, his materials are ephemeral but continually renewable likenatureitself. He makes mobiles of strong and supple vines 36 formed into giant cocoons; his hangings are blithely made of banana pulp and coconut shell strung froma curving coconut twig. He strings together dried pods and twisted roots into rustic garlands. He playfully sets loose upon a field, real or simulated as in a gallery, a swarm of assorted insects and bugs made from pods, seeds and twigs, which crawl all over the ground and climbwalls and ceilings. His installations are thus a reclaiming of space for nature; in one of his installations he released upon a field an assortment of stones, twigs, spikes and bark, thereby situating the objects in a real space. Junyee's works rediscover the endless vitalityof nature in its materials brought into a highly inventive art-making; at the same time his use of indigenous materials is clearly linked with ecological concerns. Alice Guillermo