Jeff Salon: Painting Out Loud

BY JAY BAUTISTA |

With much of modern-day distractions plaguing our fast-paced lives, 28 year-old Jeff Salon is relieved to have experienced happy childhood to survive his daily struggles as visual artist. With children still as his artistic focus, Salon waxes sentimental this time, shifting inward in Dream a Dream reminiscing deep about what it meant to be a boy charting his destinies in a small town. Surging loose to what these memories may evoke, he thrives to actuate their fateful occurrences on these canvases.

More subdued in his tone than in his previous output, mixing brown and gray he realizes his subjects by accenting them with metallic tint to connote his strength on his memories. This mixture of the earth’s hues shines brightest when light translates them to the viewer.

Soul Rise Melodies, Oil on Canvas, 2014

Soul Rise Melodies not only reflects Salon’s other passion—music--but how he uses the kind of determination he espouses. Not even an explosion of influences and the pull of temptations or material disturbance as represented behind him can take Salon out of his zone whether he is painting or whatever he is listening to.

Growing up in Camarines Sur, Salon was resourceful enough to make his own toys like carving boats from wood, flying kites in their unique art forms, and drawing unique images on sand. He would go to his secret haunts or to scenic spots where his slippers would take him no matter how far they were or little money he had.

Endless Bliss, Oil on Canvas, 2014

By the time he was painting these scenes, fun-filled moments came rushing in. How Salon missed his friends in Endless Bliss seeking to capture the ties that bound them in friendship. A typical work for Salon is children at play like this. He captures their movement to the point that some of their physical appearances vanish as the whiff of appears. Their laughter hid their fears, what did not scare them made them stronger. We are what we were then only to go our own separate ways. We just grew taller, grew bigger and maybe wiser.

Touch of Innocence, Oil on Canvas, 2014

With more brown than gray, Salon’s paintings refer to memorable moments or personal glories. Teaching us what course of action to take or how appropriate we live and what we could learn from their memories. Salon’s brilliance is in the details like letting some of his paint freely drip, usually green or any color so one can see the contrast. He splats on some of his pieces giving it fresh feel of the paint.

Another visual style is using graphic patterns like flowers, stars, or even birds on the images signifying the character of the images. These are reminders of his habit of spending time on the roof of their house when he was a kid, they has become his signatures to his art. Ever the good son, these are things from home he always takes with him. 

Touch of Innocence it is purity personified. When things don’t go our way we look back to a time when we were innocent and carefree. We always knew what pure happiness meant and how it felt. As children mature at an early age they lose their childhood and being child-like forever.

Summer Love, Oil on Canvas, 2014

Every promdi knows the story of Summer Love. Long before the advent of internet and mobile phones, the image brings you back to that embrace of a playmate you spent most of your summertime with. Like the younger sister you never had, you would get her that lone ripe fruit up the tree she was begging or she held your hand when you confronted the bullies in the neighborhood. However when the rainy days pour in, flooding the fields of your friendship, you would learn from your mother that her parents sent her to Manila for better education.   

Clash of Fierce welcomes us to the complex jungle that parallels the contemporary art scene. Packed with wolves, in case of tigers and horses. Paved with as many artists as fierce as these animals willing to contribute a style, an icon or two. With the event of local auction houses and new independent art spaces one still finds a lot of practicing artists searching for their respective places in the community. Some like hanging up the tree, submerged in the swamp or roaming in the expanse of land. Some resort to copying the masters or even outwitting a competitor for a particular creative perspective or commercial brushstrokes in order to survive. Not all is sad though and not all have the monopoly of images as Salon claims. All artists have a stake whatever claims they have. However not the strong but only the fittest survives.

In this tabula rasa, Salon continues to assert his own distinction by advocating the causes of children and in keeping alive the child in his sepia-to-almost bronze tint. His realism is dynamic that your eyes are led to move, rather than stare in the static. With Dream a Dream, Salon believes that his realities are fulfilled because he never stopped dreaming about it. So can you.  

Clash of the Fierce, Oil on Canvas, 2014

Dream a Dream is Jeff Salon’s 2^nd Solo Exhibition ongoing at the Art Center, SM Megamall, Mandaluyong City.

Selfies by Jeff Salon

| Jay Bautista

A theme very close to his heart since he started holding up his brushes, Jeff Salon takes up the cause of children not more than fifteen years old, comprising more than forty percent of our population, those who have been either neglected at home, sexually abused, victims of armed conflict, deeply involved in gangs in schools. Focusing on their welfare, done in his unique realist hues, these sordid portraits comprise Salon’s first solo exhibition whimsically entitled Nice and Naughty.

Hazard Ground, 2013. Oil and Acrylic on Canvas, 60 x 48 inches.

Evoking obvious intensity, everyone knows the story behind Hazard Ground however we seem too hard to admit. Unable to flee the countryside marred by war, the young boy is forced by circumstance to mature and be actively involved in the propagation of its futility of violence. Depending on its root causes, be it political, racial or religious, hatred has already gone deep through generations – his grandfather died for it, his father invited him to it, then the boy, out of his familial obligation takes up the cudgels – all in the name of payback revenge. Grim as grime, Salon whose fondness for texture, purposely riddled the canvas by bullets unable to control the anguish and despair that has befallen the once innocent boy. Signifying his own life’s loss, as the prime of his youth is being stolen from him, a glaring infra-red is aimed at him with his generation -- as the targeted victims like the previous generation before them. Close to 50,000 children are displaced in armed conflict every year, one reason why Salon has also advocated the total banning of firearms as toys. No one can tell the difference. However Salon insists that hope still looms as a subliminal peace sign hovers emphatically on the picture.

Chasing Boundaries, 2103. Oil on Canvas, 79 x 72 inches.

Fourth among a brood of seven, Salon had public school teachers for his parents. Thus stressing in them the value for hard work and education, however Salon’s hometown is too small for the competitive spirit in him. Growing up in Calabanga, Camarines Sur, a daily ritual for Salon happens every late afternoon. Like clockwork, he would go up their rusty roof and stare at the big sky and patiently wait for the sun to set. Considering more like God affirming His signature at the end of the day He has created, Salon is so amazed as that there was never the same sunset ever since. Even astronomers have scientifically studied this phenomenon time and again. Not until the stars are in full bloom and out for their nightly performance will Salon come down for supper.

Chasing Boundaries is a product of this contemplative daily routine during dusk. Probably the most personal piece in this collection as Salon always had big bold dreams of making it in the city. Always the optimist, life’s aspirations come in the form of this hopeful child whose hands clasp in anticipation. This autobiographical piece captured many of his wishes in the list of life worth depicting: the need for speed in being a motocross rider, adventurer who perennially roams around town either heading by the beach after class or to visit an old artist and listens to his philosophy in life and art. 

Notice his fondness for boats be it the old galleon ship or the simple paper one, Salon longs to see other worlds that someday he knows he will conquer. Related to this longing for travel are the constant birds in flight etched as textures on his paint’s surface. Aesthetically this graphic handle represents his quest for freedom for his art and for his country. Part of his creative tableaus are his shooting or falling stars that gently remind him of his dreams and how far he has gone from that roof while looking up to them.

Children are anything but children these days and Salon has been visual in narrating their dismal tales some kept stubbornly silent to themselves. One of Salon’s pet peeve is someone who oppresses fellows even at their young age. Untamed reports of a disturbed kid who secretly bullies other kids. This bully will eventually will be the next thug to become a menace to the society. In showing his defiance, this bullied kid, with all the hurt being inflicted in him words and in his ripening body, gathers strength to lash out his tongue out claiming this as his own small victory. Translation: you may have hurt me but my spirit is intact. Featured turning his back against the viewer, Salon traces this bully’s values may have been corrupted by the current context of his society – the videos he imbibed in himself, the save-the-earth films his father watches in the only television at home. Salon even believes that unconsciously the parents become the bully’s first bullies as they themselves call him names at home or display the attitude of the very physical violence that hurt them to hurt others. Coating it as a sign of love, unknown to parents tolerating this kind of dysfunctional behavior in them would be more harmful in the future. Sometimes reciprocating their negligence in the guise for just being playful or “because they are kids, let them be.”

Little Swan, 2013. Oil and Acrylic on Canvas, 24 x 16 inches.

Little Swan seeks to capture a young girl’s imagination beyond her Barbie dolls and teen celebrity idols. As one’s childhood is such a short season, it is fleeting enough for a girl without ambitions. Like a woman without children, could it be the promise of contemporary of the internet or some future perfection in the digital games suppress it? 
 

Salon is old school, believing in the power of painting as a loaded two-dimensional piece being bound for the wall. Not only for their practicality, accessibility and maximizing space, its single view focus still works, drawing up attention that remains effective and habitual no matter how fast the modern times can be. A master in composition, a monochrome rendition of the characters that make up his image, he emphatically draws up the main selfie of the child in sharp and not stark in likeness. Rendering it in layered yet playful appearance.  

Similar to the one in Beyond Vision, where the bigger profile covers his face with his hands, signaling the viewer that we should not tolerate wrong doings by adults. Just because children are small and naïve doesn’t mean they are not smarter than us.

Television has become the post modern baby sitter as Nice and Naughty series deals with the influences like media and how there is a dire need for alternative education that would help children adapt to change. It would seem biological that no child is capable of speech until he has heard of other human beings speak, or even formed a language without the help of communication from his family. Thus these three paintings address how children’s perception is being influenced by current practice by music, family dynamics and current surroundings. It was revealed in a study that watching television for children there is no delineation from the main shows and the advertisements in between them. Everything is one long uninterrupted viewing. The regular noontime show could be extended with a laundry soap commercial. Hence a ten-year old may realize that laundry is vital component for say, national development, so are the other fast food chains, loaning in banks, and even Kris Aquino’s shampoo.

Beyond Vision, 2013. Oil and Acrylic on Canvas, 60 x 36 inches.

Ironically, seeing the depth of these portrayals, Salon hopes that by viewing his works one is reminded of one’s happy childhood whenever they may be. That these children are not our children as Kahlil Gibran has said, “but of life’s constant longing for itself.” 

Nice and Naughty is Jeff Salon’s ongoing first solo exhibition as part of the tenth anniversary celebration of Nineveh Artspace in Sta. Cruz, Laguna.