To celebrate children’s month this November, Jamisola presents Re-creation, an art exhibit highlighting the aspect of play in art-making. Through repurposing found objects and reimagining them as toy guns, the artist animates an assortment of materials that would otherwise be left to litter the streets or choke up waterways.

This do-it-yourself approach to art making was rooted in his childhood sensibility of maximizing opportunities that came his way. According to the artist even as a child he has created his own toys. Through his fertile imagination, simple materials like newspapers, cartons, styrofoam, tin cans and other odds and ends were transformed into space ships of different shapes and designs. He witnessed the more practical side of repurposing by observing his mother create round rags from sacks of old fabrics and other textiles. By the 4th grade, he started attending a special art class in the afternoon. From the 5th to 6th grades his favorite subject, shop class gave him access to its workshop. There he familiarized himself with different equipments and power tools and learned their safe and proper use. His skills were further honed thru the vocational courses he enrolled in during his high school years and even more so when he decided to take up Fine Arts at the Technological University of the Philippines in Manila.

These experiences growing up shaped his approach in his art practice: a mix of playful intuition and precision execution. He starts by observing his environment then he responds to the forms and possibilities of various found objects and proceeds to gather the ones that show promise. Afterwards, he proceeds to systematically fuse together the seemingly incoherent pieces of junk into an assorted array of toy guns, robots and other free standing or wall-bound creations.

A noticeable element in his works is the constant use of the PVC (polyvinyl chloride) pipes, a common construction material used primarily in electrical and plumbing works. Jamisola shares that the use of PVC were inspired by the “boga” the modern version of the bamboo cannon. It used to be wildly popular as a firecracker during New Year’s Day until it was banned due to the injuries it caused, most notably among minors. Still he notes the ingenuity of its design, the affordability of the materials needed and the simplicity of its construction.