Updated: April 24, 2023, 10:50 A.M.
Vancouver, B.C.
This is the second solo exhibition following debut ‘Extra’ last year
Teodoro Alcuitas
A second solo exhibition by Vancouver artist Jay Cabalu http://jaycabalu.com/ is opening from April 29 to May 28 at Burnaby’s Deer Lake Art Gallery. Opening reception is on Thursday, May 4th from 6 – 8 PM.
Featuring over 20 pieces of the most well-known works, deep cuts and new works from the first 15 years of his collage practice, there will be two exhibitions spaces showcasing celebrity portraits, self-portraits, florals and more.
Cabalu pushes the limits of photo collage by using materials and concepts in a diverse range of styles. From portraits of cultural icons to historic events, his works reveals the human desire to have and be more, as both “empowering and destructive”.
Born in the Philippines, he lived briefly with his family in Brunei before immigrating to Canada in 1991. At a young age, Cabalu realized that the images of society depicted in magazines and on TV fell short in representing his Filipinoness as well as other people of colour.
A series of collage portraits that use images physically cut and pasted from the glittering detritus of the print media age, mining what one reviewer called “the vast and endless landfill-worthy bilge of glossy luxury and consumer magazines that persist even in the digital age.”
An example is the portrait of the infamous Imelda Marcos, wife of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos whose son Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos, Jr.now rules the country. Imelda is known for her excessive collection of shoes and other things.
Cabalu admits that his obsession with comics and magazines collected since childhood reflects society’s capitalist and consumer-driven economy. From this collection, he cuts and rearranges mass media images to create his work.
Cabalu has been exhibiting since graduating in 2013 with a BFA from Kwantlen Polytechnic University. His first international show in 2018 was with the Foundation for Asian-American Independent Media in Chicago and part of exhibitions with the UK-based Queer Asia in 2018 and 2019 in which he gave a virtual artist talk at the British Museum. In 2020, his first collaborative exhibition focused on queer-Asian identity at the SUM Gallery as part of Yellow Peril; The Celestial Elements. Cabalu’s self-portrait De Los Reyes, appears on the cover of the McGill-Queens University Press publication Canadian Culinary Imaginations.