In his first solo exhibition, Jonathan Ching tackles what it is like to be happy or to be in a state of bliss. “It’s what everybody wants, and yet, it’s so elusive.” Nothing is Compulsory except Happiness is on view at the West Gallery (Gallery 3, West Avenue, Quezon City) from February 12 to March 19. This “elusive” emotional state goes all the way back to childhood, when the concept of being rewarded went with following what our parents told us to do. As we grow older, though, we realize that happiness or contentment is not always guaranteed, no matter how we obediently follow the rules. Ching adds, “Maybe happiness might not be the end-goal, but just a temporary respite from life - good or bad. Most of the time happiness is less about external conditions, but more of an internal feeling.” “It’s not how the environment imposes its conditions on us but how we react to stimulus (good or bad) from our environment.” He compares his three gelatin paintings in oil, collectively known as “Pills of Forgetfulness,” to the attitude of children, gladly taking what has been handed to them just to forget about the pain they went through. “In this aspect, ignorance or forgetfulness is not such a bad idea.” Ching describes the process in which he has arrived at this concept as painfully slow. Sometimes he obsessively clings to an idea, concept, or image, and when it is time to paint, “I usually take images out of their original context, sometimes I write texts and phrases onto them to put a new twist. Sometimes I would paint small paintings, showing just one object as an icon or a symbol, or a series of three to four paintings to convey an idea.”
Documentation
