The Last Mojo Show finds artist Jonathan Olazo re-discovering the joys he derives from painting, using oil and mixed media in his latest series of works. The Last Mojo Show runs at West Gallery, West Avenue, Quezon City, until October 21.
Olazo says he is focusing on the importance of painting “at this time when other vanguard ‘styles’ have stacked up against and have dismissed painting, my [style] included.”
In The Last Mojo Show, his first Don Juan-themed exhibit since “Don Juan Manifestos/Don Juan Variations” almost three years ago, Olazo explores painting in a time in which he thinks, “so much has been acknowledged, such as the acceptance of modernism’s end.”
It’s a time when vanguard formats have become the formula and styles. As is axiomatic of all revolutions, the new becomes the status quo. Maybe this times are characterized by all ideas and concepts intersecting and leveling each other, and the only thing to do is build on the habit of making art.
“The basic goal is to enjoy paintings again,” adds Olazo, believing that he has begun to think about his painting even more because it is also woven into his Christian beliefs.
And so Olazo waits for the right time: “Some of the grounds or surfaces used in the paintings were done over a long period of time, or sitting in the studio without much being added on [the canvas].”
The images, he continues, just found their way onto the canvas, sometimes even accidentally. “It’s different this time because there was a tangible amount of painting done to produce the works. The previous exhibits were about painting, too, but I used alternative if not peripheral approaches.”
For Olazo, the important thing is that he always finds a new lease on why he needs to continue painting and discovering new approaches to art making. One of his works, titled “Begat,” tackles such objective: “It indexes my experience of art as always extending itself.”
When asked what he still wants to accomplish as an artist, Olazo replies, “My dad dreamt of doing a ‘copy,’ more of an appropriation of Luna’s Spoliarium. Maybe I’d take that on before I reach 45.”
Son of noted Filipino printmaker and modernist Romulo Olazo, Jonathan first bloomed in printmaking before shifting to painting abstract images. A recipient of the CCP Thirteen Artist Award in 1994, Olazo took up fine arts at the University of the Philippines in Diliman.
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