From the moment the aggressive orange sun breaks through the skies and signals the start of a brand new day to the time when it sets, is seemingly swallowed whole by the seas, and gets eclipsed by the silvery moon at night, 31-year-old Luis Lorenzana makes magic and creates a make-believe world fastidiously inside his modest studio with a kind of madness even he finds a tad overwhelming sometimes. But for most part, he doesn’t see this as something foreign to him. He pays no mind to being cooped up in his atelier for days without respite and with only his motley crew of odd little beer fairies, plump clowns with perpetually sad expressions plastered on their faces, and two-eyed petite strawberries, among others, as his companions.

Like a well-oiled assembly machine that churns and runs without the slightest kinks, Luis does things almost maniacally to make up for the lost time that he hadn’t been able to brandish his paints and brushes to the hilt. Not because he didn’t want to at the time, he says, but because circumstances in his life had coerced him to choose a more practical lifestyle — one that involves a nine-to-five job and a steady income that never fails to put bread on the table. On the downside though, Luis lived an existence wanting of meaning, that is, until recently.

A graduate of Public Administration from the University of the Philippines (UP), Luis was set to be a lawyer what with a pre-law degree in his belt and a job as legislative staff-member in the Philippine senate back in 2000. Luis, however, saw himself growing weary of his career. He longed to hold a brush, mix oils in a palette, smell the familiar scent of turpentine, and artfully attack blank canvases — things he had done already since childhood. And so the four years of his stay in the senate found him putting up a balancing act.

“I didn’t go to art school because my parents were apprehensive about it, but painting has always been an interest I’ve always treated with passion. But I only picked up a brush again right after graduation when I had joined the Phillip Morris painting competition. Interestingly, I got included in the top 50 even though I didn’t have any formal training and was the youngest,” the self-taught artist shares.

He considered this window of opportunity as impetus to jumpstart his foray into the art scene. He would paint at night after he got home from work until the wee hours, doze off for just an hour or two, and go back to his day job again as if he hadn’t stayed up all night starting or finishing a painting. In between joining competitions, however, and winning in some, Luis thought he couldn’t keep up with the exhausting cycle he has created for himself. His love for the arts was too much not to pay any attention to, like a big, blue elephant placed inside a cramped and muggy space. He wanted out of the senate.

“At 25, I told myself that I’ll burn all the bridges and make painting a full-time career. It’s now or never. Do or die. Make or break. It was scary,” he admits. But things didn’t sail out smoothly for Luis. The moment he had thrown caution to the wind was also the time when his loved ones grew embittered with his bold decision. They didn’t understand the point of Luis leaving a regular position in the senate in favor of a capricious and romantic pursuit.

“I didn’t have money. Ni pambili ng yosi at pamasahe sa jeep wala ako. My girlfriend of five years left me because she had been so quick to judge that I wouldn’t be able to provide her anything. Ano raw ang ipakakain ko sa kanya? It was painful because I badly needed someone to assure me that what I was doing was right. Even my family was against my choice,” he tells.

In spite of this big blow to his confidence, Luis never faltered completely. Yes, there were times when he would doubt himself and his capabilities, cry countless nights, and simply nurse his sorrows with bottles of beer because everyone seemed to think he was just some UP alumnus whose life and career was officially over. But he was a trooper.

He relates, “Some closest friends would give me money to buy paints and art materials which are so expensive for a guy who has no means to buy them. If Van Gogh had friends like mine…I’m sure he wouldn’t kill himself. Also, I saw something that others couldn’t or probably chose to ignore. I saw that I could still hold on to my dreams and make them happen.”

And so he did. In 2008, Luis was introduced to Juxtapoz Magazine by a friend. An international glossy based in California, Juxtapoz tracks contemporary and underground art and cultural movements the world over such as psychedelic and hot rod art, graffiti, and street art, to name a few. In it, Luis found a ‘lowbrow’ (pop surrealism) art genre he could relate with and his pieces could fall under. “When I started painting, I didn’t know where to fit in. I had no mentor who could back me up. I had no art school. When I learned about Juxtapoz, I saw that the works featured there had the same visual language as my body of work. I became excited!” he says.

He then decided to send his portfolio to some galleries in the States. A space called Distinction Gallery in Escondido, California took notice of Luis’s whimsical oeuvres and requested for him to ship his pieces immediately, at their expense even, upon learning that Luis couldn’t possibly shoulder the steep fees. Shortly after, his art career skyrocketed. He began exhibiting his works in group and solo shows not only in California but as well as in New York and Germany.

“That’s a dream come true! Sa totoo lang, kahit na nagpipinta ka ng walang pera, katuparan na ‘yun ng pangarap mo eh. And when you earn money by doing what you love, that’s just icing on the cake…a sweet cherry on top,” he muses.

But to assert that he has achieved his dreams all on his own is blasphemy, Luis stresses. He says that he couldn’t have painted opuses without God’s divine providence. For the painter, each of his brushstrokes is a visual paean to God, a vividly colored song, a testament of his praise for Him. “Before I strike the canvas, I ask the Lord to lend me .0001% of his infallible painting skills so that I may create well. My works are dedicated to Him. It’s He whom I always want to please,” Luis maintains.

As a result, Luis’s paintings in oil and drawings in graphite and in watercolor come out as inspired works concept- and technique-wise. Never leaving anything to chance or accidents, the painter’s brushstrokes are deliberate. His approach to the canvas is obsessive, and his painterly mission, superlative.

To tweak and refine his craft, Luis, as fan of old-school paintings, even flew to museums in Paris and Amsterdam to study the techniques of the classical masters, particularly those of Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt. Upon returning to the Philippines, Luis took cue from them and created pieces using the arduous process of layering thin glazes of oil paints to make the surface of his paintings smooth, even, and as if polished with sheen. To become at par with his idols, Luis also used toxic lead white (flake white), deemed as the most structurally sound ‘underpainting’ or primer for oil paintings, and pricey but resilient and fine sable brushes.

Technicality aside though, Luis’ paintings are really extensions and appendages of himself. His are dream-like pieces rendered in great detail coupled with visual motifs that play with the imagination and personal narratives wrought with melancholic and lyrical emotions that touch the heart. They are the artist’s experiences and disappointments. Ultimately, painting is Luis’ cathartic way of telling his personal journey both as man and as painter.

His first homecoming show in the country in ⁰Slab last September, titled ‘The Tales of the Beer Fairies,’ is proof of Luis’ intimate exploration of existential aloneness and nostalgia. The exhibit seemingly showcased his pains and his longings, things he refused and wanted to forget, and repressed sentiments he couldn’t convert into words. He reveals, “If couldn’t find the appropriate words to express my feelings, I paint them instead. I find satisfaction in doing so. That’s when I feel complete and saintly, if you will.”

Central to his works are quirky images of rotund male clowns with downcast eyes and superhero capes either clutching a beer fairy or with a cigarette in their mouths, traditionally dressed women wearing a forlorn expression, blooms in varied hues, and gloomy backgrounds. One can say that Luis’s canvases are fantastical realms shrouded in mystery that only the artist can fully understand, and although we, as his audience, are allowed glimpses of them, we can only speculate as to what they truly are. We can only interpret them in relation to our own personal odysseys because it seems that the artist would never kiss and tell.

One thing though that Luis remains open about is that his secret to success is facing and enjoying his early struggles. “The deeper your struggles are, the deeper your roots become; the higher you can go, the truer your successes are. Never give up. Don’t ever quit. Mahalin mo ‘yung ginagawa mo. Ituring mo siyang buhay mo. Kasi ako, mamamatay ako kapag tinanggal mo sa akin ‘yung pagpipinta. Ganoon ko siya kamahal,” so says the man who, against all odds, just believed in himself and with magic hands finally breathed life to magical worlds and playgrounds he could only call genuinely his.