Jason Montinola at Provence Gallery
“When I am printing, I go into a higher state of consciousness, so that I have flashes of insight. For me, it is a mystical experience. Art takes me to another level of existence,” says Pandy Aviado, one of the foremost Filipino printmakers. Jason Montinola shares the same sentiments as he says, “I paint what I see in visions. Not all of it, but whatever equivalent we have within our level of experience.”
In “The Fall of the Old God,” Montinola uses archetypal imagery from the myths of different religions and cultures, to express his existential questions. Carl Jung related these images from myths different cultures, to important truths about man’s existence, and co-existence. Jung cautioned that “the development of Western philosophy during the last two centuries has succeeded in isolating the mind in its own sphere and in severing it from its primordial oneness with the universe. Man himself has ceased to be the microcosm and eidolon of the cosmos, and his anima is no longer the consubstantial scintilla, spark of the Anima Mundi, World Soul.” Montinola seems to echo the same sentiments as he says, “man has made himself a god. To him, he is the apex of the pyramid of existence. In the Pentateuch (first five books of the Old Testament), we are cautioned about worshipping false gods. I ask, If a god could fall, is he still a god?” With the problems facing our world, it does seem that we have fallen. Like a prophet, Montinola casts a mirror for us to examine the realities we have created, and appeals to our sense to question them.
Jason Montinola’s “The Fall of the Old God” is on view until Jan. 6, 2019.