Joar Songcuya

Joar Songcuya is one of many from the Philippines to have begun a career as a sailor and marine engineer on the open seas. Through his familiarity with waterways and port cities, he spun a web of connections, both naval and personal, across the globe. As a way of passing time, at the end of his shifts, he began recording his experiences on canvas, which continue to occupy a central role in his artistic career today. His work reveals how variously the sea can confront different people—it can be a yearned-for escape or a life-threatening natural force; a space of loneliness or of freedom. The works exhibited here reflect this ambivalence. While Pasipiko II (2021), with its pastel-coloured sky and shallow sea flecked with small whitecaps, conveys a sense of an almost idyllic place, Atlantiko II (2021) radiates the sheer power and violence of the ocean, rendered in broad brushstrokes and darker shades of blue for the towering waves. The artist’s oeuvre also extends to figural depictions, such as the painting A Splash on Deck (2021), which depicts a person labouring on a ship’s deck. Songcuya’s work, at first glance, appears to engage primarily with ‘water’ as a natural force and with his experiences as a sailor, but its scope expands when considered in a geopolitical context, opening up new worlds that raise questions about colonial continuities, Filipino labour migration, statelessness, and living and working conditions at sea.

Works in the exhibition: A Sea on Fire (2023), oil on canvas, 91.4 × 116.8 cm; Atlantiko II (2021), oil on canvas, 121.9 × 182.9 cm; Pasipiko II (2021), oil on canvas, 121.9 × 182.9 cm: The Sea Is Not A Quiet Place (2021), oil on canvas, 121.9 × 182.9 cm; A Splash on Deck (2021), oil on canvas, 91.4 × 60.9 cm. Courtesy of the artist