CONFLUENCE

JEF CABLOG: CONFLUENCE

5^TH Solo Exhibition

Alliance Francaise de Manille

March 07 to April 20, 2018

Opening March 07, 6:30pm


Text by: Ricky Francisco

In 2015, Baguio-based artist Jef Cablog was awarded an artist’s residency in Ile de groix, Brittany, France through the assistance of Alliance Francaise de Manille and the NCCA.  Like all epic journeys, the artist returns to Alliance Francaise de Manille transformed, and with a powerful message for us:  to be aware of our impact on the environment, and be conscious of how modernization is changing culture.

An accomplished artist, Cablog has exhibited in France, USA, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, and Korea, aside from various cities within the Philippines, since being a finalist in art competitions like Metrobank Art and Design Excellence in 2010.  Born in Barlig, Mountain Province, he has always been aware of how unique his culture is, coming from the Cordillera region, which successfully resisted over three hundred years of Spanish colonization that most other parts of the country have not been able to.  Living in a mountainous environment engenders a respect for nature, as resources like water, fertile topsoil, and animals for hunting, are greatly affected by human activity; as not doing so usually means scarcity or hunger.  Unhampered by colonial requirements, their culture has evolved to meet this balance over millennia in their own terms, and in a healthy relationship with nature.  This predisposed our artist to be sensitive to the needs of both his community, and of nature at large.

The relative isolation of the Cordillera region, and the balance its peoples have achieved, have all been put to the test when Baguio, and neighboring areas became rapidly urbanized. Along with unplanned progress came an uncontrolled increase of population.  The cool climate made it a favorite destination for Filipinos and foreigners alike over the decades, since it has been converted into an American hill station.  With the influx of people came an imbalance which resulted in the depletion of forests and the increase of trash, as well as a crisis in culture. Cablog says that biking around the city, specially at touristy areas, he would notice lots of discarded plastic bottles which affected him.  The connection that locals have with the land is probably not shared by those who visit.  This prompted him to continue painting images from his culture, which has been his trademark, as well as start something new; to experiment with plastics, which not only affects Baguio and its residents, but end up inevitably in landfills, and in our seas.  To do so, he collects the bottle caps of plastic bottles and augments them with buttons, accessories, and other materials taken from discards and in the “wag-wag” or “ukay-ukay” which has been associated so tightly with Baguio.  Plastic wrappers of the food he and his wife ate in trips abroad over the past two years also found their way in the works, blending in the memories of personal experiences, as well as the global nature of the problem of plastics. To this end, he has been able to make his “Raft Series” which play on the layered ideas that plastics float, that we need to hold on to rafts for our survival in a climate changed world, but likewise to zoom in on the fact that they pollute the oceans. His “Fin series” focuses on how animals of the seas end up swallowing plastics, either killing them, or causing problems for us when we eat fish with microplastics in them.  By melting plastics, manipulating them, and exhibiting works made from them, Cablog puts these issues to our attention.  Complementing these mixed media works are heavily impastoed paintings of images which relate to his culture.  The “Howl series” seem to be warnings for a culture at risk of being lost, or of a culture asking us to look into the root causes of the problems of our overconsumption, which have not been a problem before, but which has become the main determinant of our survival as a species.  Seventeen works from these series comprise “CONFLUENCE”, Jef Cablog’s 5^th solo exhibition and homecoming to Alliance Francaise de Manille.  As the title seems to imply, we are at a confluence of several matters which need our full participation and undivided attention.  We are again in a situation where the future is in our hands.

CONFLUENCE runs from March 7 to April 20, 2018 at the Alliance Francaise de Manille.  For inquiries, please call 02-895-7585, e-mail: info@alliance.ph or visit www.alliance.ph.