On August 27, 2022, artists Mona Alcudia and Jay Nathan Jore ended their solo exhibitions at Qube Contemporary in Design Center Cebu, Mandaue City. Mona Alcudia’s “Pucker and Bloat” and Jay Jore’s “Veneered Desires” both opened last August 6 to an invited crowd of artists, art educators, designers, makers and creative enthusiasts. The simultaneous holding of exhibitions was a multisensory juxtaposition of materials and media: plaster cast body parts and 3D scanned and 3D printed home accessories, neon pink lights, and plexiglass mirrorized finishes, screen printed wood veneer sheets, and CNC pen plotter prints on klein blue paper.
Mona Alcudia is an assistant professor of the Fine Arts program of the University of the Philippines Cebu, manager of Fablab UP Cebu, and co-founder of Unosinotra, a multidisciplinary product design studio. “Pucker and Bloat” is her first solo exhibition after finishing her MA in Contextual Design from Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands. Using the medium of phygital art, this exhibition focuses on curating objects, both of notable narratives and/or anonymous origins, translating and manipulating them as 2d/3d data, and returning them to the physical realm through digital fabrication. Through the juxtaposition of these 3d scanned and fabricated objects, “Pucker and Bloat” explores how one’s perception of reality can be skewed and remade through the multi-layered lens of technology.
Jay Nathan T. Jore is an assistant professor of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines Cebu, the curator of the Jose T. Joya Gallery, and the coordinator of the Office for Initiatives in Culture and the Arts of UP Cebu. He finished his undergraduate degree in Fine Arts from the University of San Carlos in Cebu City. He completed his MA in Art Studies: Art Theory and Criticism from the University of the Philippines Diliman. In his first solo show, “Veneered Desires”, Jore presented an exhibition that attempts to untangle the messy ropes and thick sheets that conceal the rich and intricate lives of queer creatives. The works juxtapose interpellations across the fields of Cebuano art history, popular cultures, the social and economic spaces that frame queerness as the subject and object of art.
To further engage the Cebuano creative community, each artist led a series of lectures and workshops throughout the course of their exhibition period. On August 13, Jay Jore explored the topic of the Bisaya concept of queerness through “Si Balbino, Bayot, Buang: A Discussion on Queer Identities in the American Colonial Period in Cebu” with Mr. Francis Torres, while Mona Alcudia introduced CNC pen plotter technology through a hands-on workshop with Fablab UP Cebu last August 20. “In Drawing Machines”, workshop participants were invited to play around with generative art prompts through Processing and Midjourney and bring home their own pen plotter prints at the end of the day. “It was important for us to include complementary programming to this exhibition as academics who believe in the importance of contextualizing our art and design practice,” said Jay Jore.
To celebrate the closing of both solo exhibitions, the last night featured experimental sound and art collaborations co-curated by Melt Records. Electronic pop group LUXXX performed a collaborative set with wo hu, presenting a generative art and music projection across the walls of Qube Contemporary. Multimedia artist Rikofranko also created projection mapping visuals for the experimental music act Lomboy Bicycle Club. “We really felt like the best way to end this exhibition was to bring in our talented musician and artist friends doing these cool projects on the side, ask them to perform in the middle of our exhibits, and usher in more experimental and new media exhibitions in the future,” said Mona Alcudia.
While both exhibitions have come to a close, Interested buyers of their works can still contact Qube Contemporary at info@qubegallery.ph for catalogs and further inquiries, or visit their website: qubegallery.ph.
