Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine

Filipino Surrealist Jon Jaylo Makes US Debut With “As The Moon Draws Water”

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.

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.

Meta
Share
Facebook
Reddit
Pinterest
Email
Related Articles
Sasaku Kusuriyubi’s wild characters and scenes carry both joyful and otherworldly qualities. The artist, garnering praise on social media from the likes of James Jean and Yu Maeda, seems to take influence from both anime, mythology, and a broader pop sensibility.
Jess Johnson’s drawings and mixed-media works are meticulous in design, yet wild and otherworldly in content. Throughout her work, the New Zealand-born artist implements text to help provide more information and riddles about these strange worlds. Her new show at New York's Jack Hanley Gallery, "Everything not saved will be lost,” collects these works, plus large-scale and absorbing installations.
American artist Jamie Adams paints the human form with the expertise of an European Old Master. His rendering of musculature and gradation of skin tone is exacting and hyperrealistic. However, there is something askew in the way the necks of his figures sometimes turn too far — as if snapped by an unknown force — and stomachs appear to bulge and contract to unnatural degrees. The distortions to which Adam subjects his characters, and their simultaneously alluring and repelling effects, are similar to the ways in which John Currin manipulates his female figures. The uncanny resemblance is likely no accident, as Adams and Currin are contemporaries of one another. Born within one year of each other, Adams and Currin are both BFA graduates of Carnegie Mellon University.
Singapore-born, Los Angeles-based artist Jolene Lai creates narrative oil paintings and mixed-media works that blend cinematic and mythical notions. These surreal images can feel both pensive and intense, conjuring familiar images and the otherworldly. The artist, formerly a movie poster designer, often anchors her paintings in youthful contexts.

Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List