He took a few different turns. He got held up. By a few hours at least. A considerable about of time. He straightens his collars nervous whether he is arriving too late. Not to worry, he has devised a plan in his head. He will make a beeline to the host, chat up a few prospects then just sit back and drink with the few people he knows who are there. It will be an easy and steady night. The next instance cautioned him to think twice. Loud Music and busy chattering could be heard as he pushes open what seems to be the door to the event. He hesitates but still enters.
Jonathan Ching is a Johnny-come-lately in the world of painting. As a child, he was happy just being cooped up in the house drawing. But he only saw it as a hobby. To make a living out of it was out of the question, since he grew up thinking engineering or business or medicine was the career path he would take. After graduating with a degree in engineering, he heard that his brother Mariano was taking up a summer drawing workshop in CCP and decided to join. That was it. On a virtual whim, inspired, he decided to return to the university to study Fine Arts with a major in Visual Communication.
Through coercion and some encouragement from Soler Santos of West Gallery, his first solo exhibition finally came about in February of 2008. It proved to be the catalyst. He titled it “Nothing is Compulsory Except Happiness”.
He tackles the nature of happiness. Everyone wants a piece of it, if not all of it. Yet the idea of what happiness really is remains elusive. Our grasp on the real sense of being happy is loose and unclear. During childhood, happiness seems like a one-is-to-one equation: clean room gets ice cream. But adulthood muddles this. There is no guarantee for happiness. No promises. Only fleeting blissful moments when everything feels like it should be. Jonathan adds, “Maybe happiness might not be the end goal but just a temporary respite from life, good or bad. Most of the time happiness is less about external conditions but more of an internal feeling. It is not how the environment imposes its conditions on us but it is how we react to stimulus, good or bad, from our environment.”
Less than half a year later, in August 2008, an inspired and indomitable Ching, mounted his second solo exhibition titled “Whales Songs for the Disenchanted”. An almost diametric parallel to his first theme, Ching delves into the nature of sadness. The main work titled “Whale Songs for the Disenchanted” displays an image of a train crash. An illustration of a train which has fallen on its side – but the artist leaves out the blood, the screams and the horrors of the injured. Ching compares this to his experience with listening to whale songs. These sounds from whales come out as sad and somber to the human ears. However people will never know if these creatures are indeed truly sad. Train crashes will only be just that – a crahsed train. Impersonal and purely intellectual. When people find out and understand more about the crash, that is when thenews of a train crash becomes more compelling.
Like a train careening down the tracks, Jonathan Ching has come crashing into the art world.
The article was written by Anjanette Pe and first appeared in Philippines Yearbook 2009
Tags: 2009, Blanc, Singles, West Gallery