Biography

Jay Cabalu is a Filipino-Canadian artist based on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations in Vancouver, BC. His works are created through 100% hand-cut collage alongside other found materials. Cabalu discovered magazines and comic books at a young age after immigrating to Canada with his family in 1991. In response to mass media and capitalism, he repurposes printed imagery into highly meticulous collages that interrogate systems of consumption and representation.

Working across subjects including pop iconography, self-portraiture, and still life, Cabalu’s artistic practice has evolved over the past decade as both critique and corrective to the failures of media to reflect his everyday reality. By reappropriating the visual language of advertising and popular culture, he subverts depictions of pleasure and luxury to construct collaged worlds that overflow with contradiction.

Cabalu received his BFA from Kwantlen Polytechnic University and has exhibited internationally since graduating in 2013. A series of self-portraits created between 2017 and 2019 garnered attention through exhibitions focused on queer Asian identity. In 2018, he exhibited with the Foundation for Asian American Independent Media in Chicago. In the United Kingdom, his work was included in exhibitions with Queer Asia in 2018 and 2019, and he later presented a virtual artist talk in partnership with the British Museum.

In Vancouver, Cabalu exhibited with SUM Gallery and On Main Gallery in 2019 and 2020 through two pan-Asian group exhibitions. His self-portrait de los Reyes appears on the cover of Canadian Culinary Imaginations, published by McGill-Queen’s University Press, which examines food as multimodal media.

Cabalu’s recent solo exhibitions in British Columbia include Extra at On Main Gallery (2022, curated by Paul Wong), POP ODY$$EY at Deer Lake Gallery (2023), Bunso at the Kube (2024), and hyperfiXation at SUM Gallery (2026). His works are held in private collections across 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. Inspired by 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.