About the Artist

Jay Nathan Jore

Jay Nathan T. Jore (b.1987, Bogo City, Cebu) is an assistant professor of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines Cebu teaching art history, theory and criticism, art management and product design courses. Since 2018, he has been the curator and director of the Jose T. Joya Gallery in UP Cebu and the coordinator of the Office for Initiatives in Culture and the Arts – UP Cebu. He finished his Fine Arts undergraduate degree from the University of San Carlos in Cebu City. He completed his MA in Art Studies: Art Theory and Criticism from the University of the Philippines Diliman with a thesis on the life and times of the Cebuano muralist Raymundo Francia and his extant ceiling paintings in the heritage churches of Cebu and Bohol. As an artist, curator, and researcher, his interest includes Cebuano art and design history, contemporary art and design practices in Cebu, Philippine baroque art, queer art, and issues in heritage conservation. Under his direction, Jore launched the University of the Philippines Cebu Museum of Art and Culture which aims to preserve and promote the rich creative traditions of Cebu and its neighboring islands.

Works

My works in this exhibition look into the metaphor of nature as a mother. My views on nature and my love for gardens and plants can be traced to the nourishing presence of my grandmothers in my life. The memories of my grandparents on my mother’s side bring me back to the corn fields of my childhood. On weekends, my parents would bring me and my siblings to visit my grandparents in San Remigio. There I became familiar with how they took care of the land with invigorated passion and diligence, how the fertile land gave them the income they needed the most to send their children to school all the way to college. 
 
The nostalgia of those happy years kept bugging me, especially with the sight that the same land that was once productive and fertile is now left for the weeds to invade. The paintings ‘Field of Memories’ pay tribute to my corn farmer-grandparents who taught us the ways to know and mold the land so that we may live better lives.

Tanday Series

Tanday 1

Tanday 2

Tanday 3

Tanday 4

Fields of Memories

Field of Memories I

Field of Memories II

Installation Art

The installation highlights an heirloom stone corn mill originally owned by the late Paulino Pio and Dalmacia Bercero from Guadalupe, Bogo City Cebu. The stone ‘galingan’ has been handed down from family to family.

How to Feed a Family

Golden Harvest

Art for Planet’s Sake

As though the setting sun dances its final spectacle before retiring behind the silvery horizon, the sunset on the coastline of San Remigio, my mother’s hometown, is always a glorious sight, always golden, always heart-warming. The display of colors affects an aesthetic experience, one that many artists strive to produce in their works, that feeling of awe and wonder at the sight of beautiful art. In nature, like the phenomenon of the sunset or the majestic view of the towering mountains, artists found lasting inspiration and material sources for their works. They tried to capture the effects of nature on their canvases and mastered the techniques of naturalism as though art has become a game of illusionism. For this reason, Art imitates nature yet art also reveals and oftentimes attempts to bridge the distance between humans and the natural world. Henry Matisse advises: “An artist must possess Nature. He must identify himself with her rhythm, by efforts that will prepare the mastery which will later enable him to express himself in his own language.”

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