Louie Ignacio lets you into his ‘Inner Sanctum’

Watercolor, like crayons, is often associated with childhood. In the hands of a painter defining his state of being in the here and now, the craft turns into an effective medium for spreading the message of memory recalled with childlike wonder. This is where we find Louie Lagdameo Ignacio, wearing a black Ed Hardy T-shirt by Christian Audigier, his hair dyed green and ash-blonde. A pair of khaki shorts that extends below his knees and a pair of dark brown loafers complete his outfit. It is Friday night, Feb. 18, and he is setting up his third one-man show, Inner Sanctum at the newly-renovated Galerie Anna at SM Megamall’s fourth floor. With a little help from his friends, that is. The show opens the following day, Feb. 19. Click here to view in full screen. Inner Sanctum is a collection of 34 landscape abstracts in watercolor of places he’s been to in the last year or so. There are scenes of Geneva in Switzerland, Paris in France, and Queenstown in New Zealand -- where much of the Middle Earth scenes in the Lord of the Rings trilogy was filmed by director Peter Jackson, including Eregion Hills and the Pillars of Argonath. It is no surprise that Ignacio draws his inspiration from the Tolkien movies, because his “day job" is directing television shows for GMA Network Inc. including Mel & Joey, Party Pilipinas, and exclusives like Charice Pempengco’s Valentine Special. As a television director Ignacio is the man on top of things, barking orders on the set with his soft, firm voice. As a watercolorist, he allows his creative juices to mix with the joy of creation to the tune of Lennon and McCartney’s In my life: its opening lyrics are both the theme and anthem of Inner Sanctum. Knowing the medium is the essence of control in watercolor. In saying that he’d been to places he remembered — now neatly tucked in drawer after drawer filed in his memory bank — Ignacio allowed himself to get to know the 400-lbs watercolor paper made by Fabriano of Italy, Europe’s oldest paper mill that started making paper in 1267. For the smaller landscapes, Ignacio used 300-gsm paper from the equally venerable Arches Mill, founded in 1492. Colors behave in different ways on different papers, and that is the other half of the medium. In this case, Ignacio fancied Van Gogh Watercolor paints by Dutch manufacturer Talens. Its global distributor, Daniel Smith, says that this particular product is considered for students before subtly hinting that the paints’ excellent quality is also suitable for professionals. “I start painting only at 1 a.m.," Ignacio tells GMA News Online. As he tells his story, his staff start hanging his paintings using an orange-colored leveler to make sure the frames are at right angles in horizontal and vertical terms on the gallery walls. Wooing the fluid motions of Van Gogh, he directs the colors to his desired places on Arches and Fabriano (after a 30-minute curing immersed in water) using a fan for control. “I’m dancing while fanning the colors," says the painter, his hips, arms, and hands swaying to the beat of In my life in his head. By following his instincts, heeding the beck and call of his muse to paint the undulating poplars of Europe and the Põhutukawas of New Zealand, beginning with their reflections on water and rising toward the heavens, Ignacio has created a collection that reflects the bearable lightness of his being that allows himself to float among the stars above the earth. “I dreamed about this," he says, referring to a number of frames already hanging on the walls of Galerie Anna. His reality is no longer objective in Inner Sanctum. The trek he took was on the royal road to his subconscious. In the process, Ignacio, went back to those places he remembered. Some of them have probably gone by now, altered by time, but some have likely remained, as Lennon and McCartney wistfully recall in their song. What is definite is how the painter rendered those memories from his mind, his Inner Sanctum, simply to say that in his life there exists a world he wants you to see. — YA, GMA News