Jigger Cruz

Biography

Jigger’s art practice is characterized by his idea to play with defacement and vandalization, making use of oil colour, spray paint and rough interventions directly on the canvases, which is sometimes burned and, in some cases, even to cut.

Born in 1984, Manila, Philippines, he lives and works in Manila.

Jigger Cruz is a leading Filipino artist who has gained international acclaim for his tactile and sensorial paintings. Created by using techniques such as impasto, cutting, burning and spraying paint on the canvas and frames, Cruz's paintings are an investigation of the materiality of painting. At the same time, their subject matter—ranging from the burden of history to religion—addresses social and political concerns in the contemporary Philippines.

Jigger’s art practice is characterized by his idea to play with defacement and vandalization, making use of the oil color, the spray paint and the rough interventions on the canvases, which he uses to burn and, in some cases, even to cut.

Each artwork springs from a painted canvas, where Cruz copies the Flemish and Post-Renaissance masters. The figures of the classical paintings that transpire below, remind the viewer of the painstaking pictorial activity and the artistic historical baggage of the contemporary painter.

Apparently without a rational scheme, the artist applies the dense oil colour layer by layer. Not hiding, rather mystifying the classical backdrop.
The artworks made for this exhibition explore the concept of failure in the visual dialogue between utter surface and inner content, between past and present, between figuration and abstraction. The endless tension towards limitlessness from one side and the proposal for a new figurative language from the other side leads the artist to exceed the formal frame-fixed boundaries, changing the frame itself from sheer decoration into work of art.

The vintage frames are burnt and treated as a continuum of the painting itself. The aesthetics of his art practice recalls the influences of artists as Bram Boggart, Willem de Kooning and the avant-garde spirit of Francis Picabia.

Cruz’s layers of pastos oil and spray paint guide the viewer to a sensorial experience which brings us closer to the sublime, where the smell of oil paints still lingers in the air.

The artist has been listed in international auction houses around the world, and has exhibited in both solo and group shows locally and internationally, from the Philippines to Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy, Austria, and the United States. His work can be found in multiple public collections, including The Dikeou Collection, Denver, CO, USA; Guggenheim Museum, NY, USA; Saatchi Collection, London, UK; and Zabludowicz Collection, London, UK.

Exhibitions

Works

Solo & Group Show

Jigger Cruz CV

Born in 1984 in Manila (Philippines).

EXHIBITIONS

Solo Show

2024

To the Walls From the Wound of Oddities, Primo Marella Gallery, Milano, IT

2023

Resembling Utopia: Jigger Cruz Solo Exhibition, Tang Contemporary, Hong Kong

2022
Jigger Cruz - Divine Synthetics, Primo Marella Gallery, Lugano, CH

2021
Paradigmal Traps, Tang Contemporary Art, Bangkok, Thailand
In the Landscape of Narratives and False Monuments, Artinformal Gallery, Manila, Philippines

2018
Picture Towards the Other Side, Albertz Benda Gallery, New York, USA

2016
The Head of the Cow Fills the Window Frame Exactly and Aligns Itself, ROH Projects, Jakarta, Indonesia No Meanings, Just My Head Seems to be in a Fiery Senseless Revolution, Kogure Gallery, Tokyo, Japan Carbon Intercourse, Pablo Gallery, Manila, Philippines
Smudging Dirty Little Touch, Albertz Benda Gallery, New York, USA
Zzzzzz, Galerie Quartier Libre, Montreal, Canada
Primae Noctis Gallery, Lugano, Switzerland

2015

Subtraction Paradise, ARNDT, Berlino
Deep down into the ecstasy of false modernism, Primo Marella Gallery Milan, Milano
Smudging Dirty Little Touch, Albertz Benda, New York, NY

2013

Surface Default, Light & Space Contemporary, Quezon City

2012

Glitch Habitation, Primae Noctis Art Gallery, Lugano
Spatial Soother, West Gallery, Quezon City, Philippines
Birth of the Parti Bantam Paintings, Ronac Art Center, San Juan City, Philippines

2011

Dead End, West Gallery, Quezon City, Philippines
Anti Depressants on Paper, Crucible Gallery, Mandaluyong City

2009

Constructing Deconstruction, Tala Gallery, Tomas Morato, Quezon City, Philippines 2008 Swing, Blanc Art
Space, Makati City, Philippines

Group Show

2022
Falling, Tang Contemporary Art, Beijing 2nd space, Beijing

2020
Abstract vs Optical, Primo Marella Gallery, Milan

2015

A3 Presents: Wasak! Filipino Art Today, ARNDT, Berlino

2014

Manila: The Night is Restless, The Day is Scornful, ARNDT Singapore, Singapore

2013

Abstrakt, Contemporary Fine Arts - CFA, Berlino
Abstrakt, Galerie Michael Haas, Berlino

2012

Ohne Titel, Light & Space Contemporary, Quezon City
Impending Doom Theory, Light & Space Contemporary, Quezon City
Anti-war=anti-orgasm, Light & Space Contemporary, Quezon City
Star Cruiser Sopas Collision, Now Gallery, Makati City
Latitudes. Encounters With The Philippines Part 2, Primo Marella Gallery Milan, Milano

2011

Munnyfestation, Blanc, Quezon City

2010

Happy Unhappy, Blanc, Quezon City

2009

Figuration Now, Paseo Gallery, Mandaluyong City
A Book About Death: An unbound book on the subject of death, Emily Harvey Space, New York, USA
If You Only Walk Long Enough, Studio 83, Singapore
Looking for Juan, Cultural Center of the Philippines

2008

BOXED, Cubicle Art Space – Pasig City

2004

Philippine Art Awards, Philippine National Museum, Manila

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