September in the Philippines can be politically contentious largely due to former President Ferdinand Marcos’s declaration of Martial law on September 21. And this turmoil was reflected in many of the art exhibits BluPrint covered for the month. But for this round-up of art exhibits in September, BluPrint highlights artworks that explore the artists’ inner […]
‘Heaven Earth Hello’: Jet Leyco Crafts Unrestrained Personal Collages
For Heaven Earth Hello, Jet Leyco overwhelms his viewers with a distinct and colorful art experience that works on its own artistic logic. The Gravity Art Space exhibit moves towards attacking at least three of the senses as the artist pitches the balance between chaos and organized intent.
Leyco said that he aimed “to illuminate three distinct spheres” in the works for this exhibit. The first looks heavenward as he portrays the unreachable expanse of the divine. The second grounds him to the reality of our temporal plane. And the third explores “the enigmatic liminal space where they converge.”
“The restaged narratives play themselves out beyond Biblical realms, extending their mapping of the afterlife to include concepts of heaven and hell as ancient as Mesopotamian history and as recent as AI regurgitations,” Ian Carlo Jaucian said in their exhibit write-up.
Sensory Overload
Audiences may find Leyco’s exhibit to be extravagant. Distinct from the gallery’s other exhibits, Heaven Earth Hello utilizes a large rainbow-tinged carpet on the entire exhibit floor. Taking off one’s shoes to step into the exhibit, the carpet relaxes audiences with its soft fluff even before they can take in the surroundings.
Tinklings of sound flow through the air, playing low-volume rumblings across the exhibit. Large quotes in red stick out in the walls, some from the childhood game “Langit Lupa.” The lighting combination is bright, crafting a contrast between the colorful works hanging on the wall and the cream-colored walls themselves. Red lighting from the ceiling adds a bit of pop to the exhibition; it also contains drawings of face-like figures in black hanging above.
All of this works in service of the collages and paintings, which melds images and colors in unique, often-unintuitive ways. The images vary between animals, cut-out pictures from papers and magazines with comic speech bubbles, three-dimensional shapes, and abstract paint strokes. .
Deliberate Excess
Every work is packed with detail, building on its ideas to aid its atmosphere. Collages like “A Tale of a Centaury” or “Paradise Para Dies” accomplish creating an explosive environment akin to a Renaissance painting. These mimic motion well as it allows viewers to step into the chaos of its surroundings.
A personal favorite of the collage works is “Worst Creature.” For this work, Leyco cuts up frames of different comic strips and puts them together in a visually-coherent way. It mocks the standardized fashions we tell stories in whatever medium we use. But it also portrays how easily a person can fill in the gaps and meaning in images we put together, even if they’re practically incoherent.
Beyond the framed pieces that mimic motion, Jet Leyco also includes different videos of animated collages. Some of these were included in the recently-concluded Terror Incognita exhibit, and they provide whimsy in their repeated, gif-like bouts of motion.
Mixed in the collages are abstract paintings combining different kinds of paint on paper. They evoke the same chaotic spirit as the collages but with less detail. Leyco’s abstract paintings showcase his deliberate technique in creating disorder.
Finding Grounding in Wonder
To pair with the excess, Jet Leyco grounds Heaven Earth Hello with personal touches which link towards his own upbringing to add a layer of meaning to the works.
Childhood pictures and paraphernalia litter the middle spaces of the framed works. A photo of a young tween graduating occupies a prominent place in the exhibit. Aged paper hanging in the exhibit contains important quotes, a script page, and even a report card.
Leyco even uses faded photographs for the collage work “Memories of Murmur.” The pictures appear to fade in together, merging into a giant mess of hazy pasts that seemingly disappear into the white background.
“The relentless act of sampling evades the conviction of an explicit narrative, but it encourages the search for a grander allegory that transcends time and culture,” Ian Carlo Jaucian wrote.
Heaven Earth Hello samples and appropriates ideas together to form a distinctly personal portrait of an artist’s life and perspective. It doesn’t aim for narrative coherence; instead, it endeavors to overwhelm the senses and give its audience a messy, chaotic experience they themselves can decode.
Related reading: ‘Terror Incognita’ Shows How Generative AI Works Against Culture Creation
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