The Art of Jzy Tilos

In Art on June 16, 2010 at 11:27 am

Jzy Tilos from Iloilo City whose short-listed work ‘Mari-it,’ stood out with its superb
craftsmanship. Here’s an excerpt from the respected Philippine art critic Patrick Flores, who
is also one of the PAA jurors, regarding Tilos’s acrylic on canvas work titled Mari-it:
“Seized by the Hiligaynon term for enchantment, the work is at once an admonition and
an invitation. We are led to a nether world of elementals, but we are also asked not to
encroach on it. To upset this realm is to court cataclysm, to stir up the wrath of spirits. A
display of consistent skill in drawing rounds out this work with flourish, robust with
carefully delineated figures, achieving a significant level of calibre…”
Tilos’s Mari-it (Spirits) is a stunning work where Gothic elements seamlessly combine with
what Flores called the ‘nether world of elementals,’ a world that Tilos’s imagination
inhabits. My curiosity stirred I set out to contact Tilos by email to find out more about his
work. My own research and correspondence yielded some more fascinating works in pen
and pencil sent by Tilos himself, some of which I am posting here.
Craftsmanship, technique, the aesthetic experience and the narrative elements employed by
Tilos to visualise and re-create a ‘nether world of elementals,’ and yet avoiding the traps of
cliché or naive novelty, all confirm his unique talent, while at the same time shining a light
on the sensibility of artists from the region.

TECHNIQUES IN PAINTING:
ACRYLIC which means a fast-drying paint made of pigment suspended in acrylic polymer
emulsion. Acrylic paints are water-soluble, but become water-resistant when dry.

Medium used: Oil paints (paints that use oil to hold pigments together)