Even If It Takes A Hundred Years

Jomari T’leon

Blanc Gallery

How did we end up here, wedged in this particular space and time? What does it even mean to be a nation anymore? What kind of future do we forge by forgetting our bones?

In Jomari T’leon’s Even If It Takes A Hundred Years, he confronts existential questions about how our sense of space and territory navigates our reality. Inspired by contemporary and traditional Filipino and European paintings and photography, he paints symbolic narratives spawned by the different realities we paint ourselves into or are forcibly painted over us these days. Among several social issues portrayed, one alarming truth hovers: That even after having been colonized by foreign power for hundreds of years, there are those of us who still just as easily turn over the keys to our own subjugation—albeit to more insidious forces at play.

He cites specific pieces to illustrate: “Treason” points a finger at all the traitors snaking their way around key crevices in Philippine history, “End of the River”, which depicts a landscape and its sacred roots deeply fragmented and scarred by colonization, “Territory”, which laments our continued loss of place and space and the consequent sense of security it robs us of, “Statistic”, which hauntingly illustrates an example of the terrifying ways our most vulnerable sectors live through Joseph Stalin meant when he said “a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic”; and “Cave”, which is based on Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. What makes his works more ominous is the contrast of softness with jarring details that capture powerful details instead of giving away the whole picture.  Leaving the rest to context, raw reality paints a much more disturbing picture that demands to be looked at for what it is, far beyond the frames of his works and our own limited fields of vision.

While known for his forlorn and dark aesthetic, T’leon’s pictures are far from hopeless. According to him, while he feels strongly about how we were robbed and stunted of the opportunity to develop our own identity, he also feels quite hopeful about our journey towards finding ourselves once again.

When we finally meet ourselves again, what will we choose to do with what we discover? How much of our own chaos are we willing to confront? Whatever we choose to do with what we learn, hopefully it  includes breaking through layers of hardened myths solidified throughout time —even if it takes a hundred years.

-Nikki Ignacio