LOWER AKIHABARA (GALLERY KOGURE) pleased announce solo exhibition of Jigger Cruz.

The Philippines is blessed with vast nature with world’s fourth length of coastal lines while the myriad of the chaos closed by the deep darkness such as poverty and crimes and the economically growing urban areas are blending at same time. The country is about to achieve the significant transformation under the powerful leadership from the new president. With its long history consisting of the rule under control by the Islamic country, Spain, United States and Japan, and emergence and collapse of the Marcos dictatorship, the country’s unique modern art created by generations who have witnessed such history or later has made a clear departure from the other Southeast Asian countries and has turned into a large art market with an explosive power over the past 10 years after the dramatic evolution seen since the 1990s.

Jigger Cruz was born in a religious Catholic home in the big city Malabon and majored the fine art and design in the college. He presents abstract paintings with a various styles from time to time while he makes music. In recent years he has often exhibited in New York and Berlin. Now he’s become one of the iconic young artists in the Philippines after about 10 years of his artistic efforts since 2006.

He drew, for example, the installation classic and modern art of the powerful abstraction as if it arises from there with the extremely colorful images painted on the canvas and on, or even out of, its framework, as well as the abstract paintings giving a strong expression of the destruction of the past and the backlash against the stereotype by simple and clear actions. Lively melodies like street music resides in all of his works filled with the powerful energy, but what is more attractive for him than its power, is his unreasonable and extraordinary skill of abstract paintings, turning himself to be a well-known artist not only domestically but also in the U.S. and the Europe.

The exhibition in this time is his first shot in Tokyo set the unconsciousness as its theme with the title of “No Meanings, Just My Head Seems To Be In A Fiery Senseless Revolution”. Since he is a precocious maverick, it can be imagined that there is an idle thought in a various bitter social experiences related to his works as well as the difficulties he faces with the art work production itself. The exhibition saw his pure thought as an artist, a desire to stop thinking even just temporarily and to go over the abstraction with no artificiality. His paintings may tell you the meanings of expressions decorated with the familiar visuals and words as well as the beauty which has already been defined. Jigger Cruz has been Looking for ways to reach the limit of automatism and has been fascinating people, it is now time for you to appreciate his works at the 1st solo show in Japan.