Filipino surrealist Jon Jaylo creates brilliantly colored and riddled oil paintings inspired by poetry and stories. His paintings have earned him the moniker “The Enigma” for his puzzling depictions of a parallel universe where animals wear clothes, children take on adult personas and gravity ceases to exist. Jaylo has said that he is never completely satisfied with his style, which varies from piece to piece, influenced by a range of artists like Rene Magritte, Paul Delvaux, Gustav Klimt, Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dalí, and William Bougereau. Opening September 12th, Jaylo will make his US debut with his solo exhibition “As the Moon Draws Water” at Distinction Gallery in California. Magritte’s influence is especially prevalent throughout in images of animals in bowler hats and floating apples. In one painting, “Storyteller”, Jaylo paints a masked mockingbird perched upon a floating glass heart. It is a reference to the exhibition title, borrowed from a simile in Harper Lee’s novel “To Kill A Mockingbird”: “In spite of our warnings and explanations it drew him as the moon draws water, but drew him no nearer than the light-pole on the corner, a safe distance from the Radley gate. There he would stand, his arm around the fat pole, staring and wondering.”
“As The Moon Draws Water” by Jon Jaylo will be on view at Distinction Gallery in Escondido, CA from September 12th through October 3rd. Jon Jaylo will be granting a local child with cancer $2,000, which he will donate at the show.
