Joe Geraldo On Telling the Story of Our Time

“Artists have to tell the story of their time. That is our role,” Joe Geraldo utters a self conception.

Bit by bit or all at once, Geraldo proves himself to be one of the most prolific contemporary Filipino artists in several disciplines. Practicing visual arts on a daily basis for more than two decades made him strongly focused on production; ultimately becoming a one-man factory of terracotta sculptures, drawings and paintings.

Joe Geraldo in his studio
Image from the artist

His studio is packed, wall to wall, in all four floors. When working room runs out, he would spread a blank canvas on the floor; crawling through it inch by inch with pen and ink. When clay runs out, he would break old sculptures down and recover the clay to continue making new figures. “As long as there is still life in this body, I will keep creating. Having or not having materials is out of the question. I will work as long as I am alive,” says the Negrense artist.

Joe Geraldo in his studio, image from the artist

Plowing your way through Geraldo’s enormous body of works is worth all the time it takes. He tends to describe his massive collection as things-that-came-to-be according to the state of his soul at the time of its creation. He does not really dwell on discussions about why he made a particular artwork. Instead, he navigates through what was going on in his life and the lives of people around him while he made that certain piece.

Joe Geraldo in his studio, image from the artist

In his retelling of encountered lessons, he often mentions kalag (Hiligaynon for spirit/soul) in two varying contexts; first, as a collective subject of conscience in society and second, as an inner source of being where his personal life stories are kept and elaborated.

Whether it be a sketch, a painting or a sculpture, Gerlado’s images possess vivid textures that showcase his iconic flame-like strokes. This is evident in his sculptures and also persistent in his two-dimensional works; revealing how consistent his visual movements are.

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Sometimes, We Need to Doubt Our Freedom, ink on acid free paper, 2FT X 4FT, 2022

Yet more than the sharpness of his strokes is the sharpness of his themes. Geraldo does not hesitate to assemble his brutally honest take on the seemingly moral man. He transfers his skepticism towards people in power straight on canvas, on paper, or a slab of clay, and slots them into the blind spots of socio-political structures.

The Attack, 4FT X 4FT, acrylic on canvas, 2022, included in Doubting Years exhibition at Art Cube Philippines, image from the artist

One may liken Geraldo’s visual stories to the dark, ironic and somewhat humorous criticality of Danish social critic Kierkegaard towards the ethical man- faithful yet forsaken. He also resembles the clown who Kierkegaard wrote about:

A fire began to consume a theater one evening. In an attempt to save the audience, a clown ran up onstage- shouting that a fire is devouring the theater and that they all had to leave at once. The audience merely laughed and applauded the clown. The more the clown reiterated his warning, the funnier he was to the crowd.

As such is Geraldo’s sense of humor when placing his stories on canvas. There is a kind of grim and dangerously laughable revelation of a broken system that is, underneath, unsolvable and deadening.

Joe Geraldo  as a volunteer at Brgy. 2 during Art Satellite’s workshop on the function and power of stories

The multiplied strength of the artist’s images-as-stories is likely rooted from having a father who was a skilled wood carver and a mother who was a school teacher. This unique atmosphere during his childhood years possibly helped harness the artist’s core capacity and unrelenting desire to bring lessons across to others through visual forms.

Geraldo will be opening his solo exhibition titled New World Order at the lower level of Orange Project Bacolod (Art District, Mandalagan, Bacolod, Philippines) this June 24, 2022 wherein he will share his recollections surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic as it enveloped his community.  It will display Gerlado’s series which ridicules and challenges to confront the imbalance of power that made an already dark time even darker. He invites us to look back and forth between man-as-a-body, prone to sickness and pain, and man-as-the-systems-of-humanity, inclined to sicken and inflict pain.

“Damgo lang ni tanan (This is all just a dream),” Geraldo tries to assure us. He still believes in the simplicity of doing good despite the web of illusions weaved around us.

When asked why he keeps on making art after all this time, he answers;

“Because art can counter anything. Even the darkest day.”

Image from the artist