Jared Yokte : Influx

Over the course of human evolution, art has manifested itself as an emergency bell that sounds a warning about certain threats and shifts in culture and society.

Art is like an exit or even a victory, a liberation from the domination of the

opposing force,

Art is a result of a situation that skillfully investigates that very situation.

Art is a principal symbol of a safe space that’s free from all dangers.

All of this is possible if art exists outside the conditions of life

WOLFGANG WELSCH

Setting the direction for Influx is the first video installation by the artist.   Greyscale, in fish-eye view, Jared Yokte’s half-naked body, tattooed on the upper arm—an emblem of his daughter’s drawing straight from her four-year-old sketchpad—appears on the foreground. Casting a shadow on a white brick wall, the artist inflates a solid balloon using his breath.  In metaphor, he questions how artists breathe and take in the air of the art sphere.  In a new language, Yokte confronts the truths about the art world from where he is positioned.

Sparked by Karl Marx’ labor theory that the value of a commodity is based on the amount of human labor required in its production, Yokte weaves the art world to the theory, posing the questions: does the commercialization of art affect artistic authenticity?  Will it compromise the artists’ art intent and sincerity?

As Yokte examines the dynamics of contemporary art practice and the sphere, he squares up to, unintentionally, his own.

At the core of his practice is an exploration of a lived human experience transformed through various media and exploration. Davao born and bred, educated in Vigan, now based in Tarlac, Yokte has effectively executed his epiphanies of the artist as a human.  Figures of elaborate striated lines, bodies made of colored unstrung strings occasionally floating or decapitated, set against backdrops of grim indoors or surreal outdoors—the poetry of the rubber-cut and linocut effect lines translated to the artist’s distinct works have decoded boundless human experiences.

And though these references find their way to Influx, Yokte deflects from the intimate figures, directing the audience to the metaphorical juxtapositions of the artist in the art market, its flow and stagnation, the artist inside his consciousness.

Influx is the surge in the number of art galleries opening in the past decades. It asks: how vulnerable is art to trends? How is the artist and his art protected from the consequences of the trend or the surge?

“Concrete pipes intrigued me with the notion that the flow of artistic progress must have a channel as well as branches so that we can breathe and have artistic freedom”.

(Yokte, 2024)

Dissecting Influx, the artwork, Yokte’s striated lines turned into distorted pipes or a string of infinite rubber bands trapped in a symbolic box placed on top of what could be black grass in another realm but likely human hair.  Almost airless the box screams suppressed pressure (on top of the artist’s head?) all set for explosion.

The culvert pipes, Yokte’s allegory of the problems in contemporary art practice and fear of stagnation become recognizable in Evolving Canons, Dissenting Dialogues, and Pipelines of Progress.

In The Stillness in Stillness, the pipes have been flattened and stacked reaching out to a grim ethereal sky. The grass from the other realm turns light, it becomes meditative.  “Inside the stillness is where discourse begins…” the artist says.

And internal war waged inside incubates again. This time, there is a fear of aging in art practice without consequential contribution.  The conscious critique he makes of the artworld, is the unconscious critique of himself as the artist.

How I Learned to Love the Bomb is this realization.  “This is about how I immersed in the mudbound realities of the art community. There is no escape.  Ako din pala ang kakainin ng kontexto…” (Yokte 2024).  

Influx marks an important turning point for the art of Jared Yokte, passing through an evolution to a more contemplative and analytical process of creation.  Still, the artist, in evolving form or media stays true to confronting the human experience with his art.  The unconscious remains just a soul telling his story.

These, could be the answers the artist is searching for.

Text by Moreen Austria