Biography

Jay Cabalu is a Filipino-Canadian pop artist based on the traditional, ancestral and uneceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations– Vancouver, BC. His works are made of 100% hand-cut collage as well as other found materials. He discovered magazines and comic books at a young age after his family immigrated to Canada in 1991. As a response to mass media and capitalism, Cabalu repurposes print media to create highly meticulous collages. In subject matter ranging from pop icons, self-portrait and still life, Jay's artistic practice has evolved over the past decade as critique and correction to the failures of media's attempts to depict his everyday reality. By reappropriating the visual language of advertisements and popular culture, Jay inverts depictions of pleasure and luxury to portray a collaged world overflowing with contradictions.

Cabalu has a BFA from Kwantlen Polytechnic University and has exhibited his work since graduating in 2013. A series of self-portraits Jay created from 2017-2019 garnered the attention of international exhibitions centred on queer-Asian identity. In 2018, he exhibited with the Foundation for Asian-American Independent Media in Chicago. In the UK, Cabalu’s work was part of exhibitions with Queer Asia in 2018 and 2019, for which he gave a virtual artist talk at the British Museum. Jay has exhibited work in Vancouver with SUM Gallery and On Main Gallery in 2019 and 2020 in two pan-Asian focused showcases. His self-portrait De Los Reyes, appears on the cover of the McGill-Queens University Press publication Canadian Culinary Imaginations, which explores the role of food as multimodal media. Jay Cabalu has had three recent solo exhibitions in British Columbia: Extra, at On Main Gallery in 2022 (curated by Paul Wong), POP ODY$$EY at Deer Lake Gallery in 2023 and Bunso the Kube in 2024. His works are are part of private collections in Vancouver, New York, Los Angeles, Hong Kong and the Philippines.

Statement

My work merges a foundation in drawing with a deep-rooted interest in the imagery of popular culture. Drawing from the Pop Art tradition, I create maximalist paintings entirely composed of hand-cut magazine collage. These mashups reappropriate the hyper-saturated visual landscape of the Digital Age and social media era.

Through portraits of iconic figures, I reassemble familiar faces using hundreds of curated images. Each clipping is chosen not only for its aesthetic attributes but for its contextual significance, allowing my portraits to function both as a visual likeness and a multi-layered commentary on media and identity.

Recently, my practice has expanded into other collaged compositions, such as floral still lifes influenced by 16th and 17th-century Dutch painting. These works continue my exploration of material wealth and excess. Updating this art form, I use images culled from advertisements to question the allure of consumerism in the face of mortality and environmental concerns.

As a queer Filipino, my perspective informs a practice rooted in both celebration and critique. While there's often a desire within marginalized communities to belong to the dominant culture, viewing it from the margins reveals contradictions that become central to my work.