Jigger Cruz explores the primitive memory of the figurative in contemporary painting. The paintings rework many of the stylistic quirks and formal concerns of classical painting, employing their basic composition and approximating their processes. His pursuit of the idea that a painting is also an installation results in exposing the canvas stretcher bars and revealing all aspects and surfaces in the final artworks.
Jigger’s artistic approach plays with ideas of defacement and vandalization. The traditional painted landscapes that are visible underneath Cruz’s layers of oil and spray paint give the impression that an Old Master painting has been destroyed. The destruction of these figures becomes integral to our aesthetic understanding of the piece. His paintings become assemblages of recognizable objects and obscure shapes which interlace, envelope and unfurl within one another.
Jigger Cruz studied Fine Arts at the Far Eastern University in the Philippines and Design at De La Salle-College of St. Benilde.
Selected exhibitions and fair venues include: "Smudging Dirty Little Touch", Albertz Benda, New York, USA (2016), "SUBTRACTION PARADISE", solo show at ARNDT Singapore, 2015, "Art Stage Singapore" (2015) "Depth Circus" at the West Gallery, Quezon City, Philippines (2013), "Glitch Habitation" at the Primae Noctis Gallery, Lugano, Switzerland (2012), "Dead End" at the West Gallery, Quezon City, Philippines (2011), "Watching the Wheels" at the Ayala Museum, Philippines (2010), "Tabi Tabi Po, a charity art event" at the 1:AM Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA (2010), "Constructing Deconstruction" at the Tala Gallery, Tomas Morato, Philippines (2009), "Swing" at the Blanc Art Space, Makati City, Philippines (2008) and "Pink Fumes" at the Pablo Gallery, Cubao, Araneta Center, Quezon City, Philippnes (2007).
