The ordinary, painted extraordinarily
For three years, visual artist JJ Jarin kept his nose to the grindstone, taking pause from solo exhibitions and the public visibility that comes with them.
While known for clean canvases featuring houseplants like monsteras and palms on geometric, surreal, and sometimes liminal backgrounds, Jarin used the interval to stew in ideas and explore new directions in his practice.
In “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art” (1967), Sol LeWitt wrote, “The idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work… all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand, and the execution is a perfunctory affair.”
Through his latest exhibition “To Stand Where Distance Neither Grows Nor Shrinks,” this perfunctory planning shines through. Each work is distinct, piercing the viewer with its own personality. Still, an invisible string runs through them, tying each work together into one cohesive show.
An out-of-body glitch
Jarin recalls how the exhibition concept first began. It was an ordinary day with his girlfriend, and for a brief moment, he became acutely hyperaware in what he describes in his artist’s notes as a “disorienting, out-of-body glitch where you suddenly wake up to the reality that you are right here, right now.”
“Parang naging third person ka sa sarili mong katawan,” he recalls. “Sobrang bizarre ’yung experience.”
This “micro-astral projection” moment created a rift in everyday life’s rhythms, pushing him to reexamine the mundane usually swept under the routine-rug.
As Kaye O’Yek writes in the exhibition notes, Jarin “makes mincemeat of a moment, breaking an ordinary gesture into its constituent parts.”
As you enter, the first work to greet you is “Split Second,” a small acrylic painting of a hammer striking a nail, sending a spark flying. It drives home the visual metaphor for that fleeting spark of inspiration.
This forward urge continues into a simple but powerful triptych of wooden frames resembling windows, riffing on Gerhard Richter’s “Fenster” (2002). The frame forces “the viewer to sit with that… disorienting voyeurism of depersonalization,” Jarin notes, “where, detached from the need to fix or judge, you find yourself quietly watching your own life from the outside.”
“In Good Hands”
Moving toward the light streaming through the window, Jarin’s interest in building and architecture shines through in “To Catch What Falls or Hold What Stays.” The installation combines an acrylic painting of an unfinished facade with a freestanding structure he made himself out of scaffolding pipes, mesh netting, ropes, concrete hollow blocks, and sandbags.
A mesh screen hangs across the structure, while the words “In Good Hands” appear on the painting behind it.
Some of the materials, including the stones incorporated into the installation, were found while he was out running errands. He also had the structure fabricated through welding.
“Grateful ako na nagawa ko ito… Napatunayan ko sa sarili ko na kaya kong gumawa ng ganitong klaseng work,” he says, urging viewers to trust the process.
Growth takes time
The idea of transit comes through in “You Are Here,” a five-panel series of a corridor, a facade, steps, a threshold, and a room. Installed in a cascading, staircase-like arrangement, the paintings highlight the transitional architectural spaces we often take for granted.
“The middle is an intentional place to exist,” Jarin says. “Masyado tayong naka-focus sa end goal, sa simula o sa dulo ng isang bagay. Pero minsan, nawawala sa paningin natin ang mismong proseso. Gusto ko itong bigyan ng importance dahil ito ang pinakamahabang bahagi.”
Jarin’s probe into patience and time deepens in “Saturn (Delay Isn’t a Denial),” a diptych pairing a dark interior with an image of a blooming Monstera plant. The title draws from Saturn’s association with Capricorn, the artist’s zodiac sign, inspiring discipline and delayed gratification.
“Ito kasi parang waiting room,” he says about the darker panel, framing the adjacent bloom as the eventual arrival of something that required time to mature.
This is Jarin’s first time painting a flower, despite his years of painting plants. The idea came after his girlfriend sent him a photo of a Monstera in bloom. Learning how rare this was, he saw a parallel with the exhibition’s themes, as some things take time to flourish.
Next to it, he shows a new style and step to his work. We see his usual subject, the houseplant, now with a more introspective register. He paints “Dracaena marginata,” or a dragon tree, which has twisting branches that bend toward the light, so owners have to rotate the pot for balanced growth.
Underneath are subtitles:
“Why take such a long path just to stay where you are?”
“Growth doesn’t always mean departure.”
Soft exit
The exhibition closes with “Soft Exit / Quiet Return.” On a hazy surface is flattened grass marked by a footprint, marking a gradual return to ordinary perception. Positioned opposite the hammer and spark of “Split Second,” divided by just the exhibition room door, it bookends the show, bringing its ideas full circle.
“Hindi ko ginawa itong show na parang grand gesture,” he says on the work. “Quiet return lang din, regarding sa three years na gap.”
LeWitt wrote that “the idea becomes a machine that makes the art.” And wow, how Jarin’s one idea, born out of a moment of hyperawareness, would go on to shape the entire trajectory of the show. Through his new explorations in paintings and installations, Jarin achieved the development of this idea, and he did it wonderfully so.
JJ Jarin, “To Stand Where Distance Neither Grows Nor Shrinks” runs from Oct. 22 to Nov. 21 at West Gallery, 48 West Avenue, Quezon City
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