joselitoart's photostream

Artist Statement

"To dream of the person you would like to be
is to waste the person you are."
---Anonymous

No matter how, get out of bed and do it now,
Get it on canvas instead of in your head cause
"you've plenty of time to do nothing when you're dead."
---me with Dorothy Parker

All these years with no sense of urgency. Letting my daily bombardment of inspirations remain on paper. Complacently opting for oblivion instead of being prolific. Living a life of de-carpe diem and non-momento mori. Always censoring what I should create---What’s valid enough to be seen? Is there a place for this? What’s the point? Is it worth creating or is it better left as an unexecuted adumbration? Whose influence do you want to align yourself and have a discourse with? And does citing and referencing narrow how the average viewer experiences your work? Or does it enhance it by triggering relevant associations---clues and cues---they otherwise might not have known?

The stance of “untitled,” “open interpretation” and “let the work speak for itself” is so cliché. For the average “joe” I believe a little spoonfeeding doesn’t hurt. I think it let’s them appreciate your work more when they’re given anecdotes into your mind. I think the problem with art today is that it is so obscure and highfalutin. It’s so loaded with baggage (polemics, modalities, paradigms, constructs, etc.) that the lay viewer gets perplexed. It challenges their sensibilities. It’s not viewer-friendly---having to research a scholar’s take (Cliff notes) to understand what the artist intended (in context with the ongoing discourse with art that preceded it). Conceptually and textually, I feel naming works with the most fitting and perfect titles becomes a work of art in itself---a way of grasping a work in words.

But I’ve realized time is ticking and I can choose to get stuck in the gravitas and polemics of cerebral posturing or I just have to put it out there however it’s received. Desensitized chatter will always exist. People will sum you up and pigeonhole you were they wish. All one can do is get informed as much as possible while you create what interests your mind, heart and soul. Hopefully kindred spirits will value your work and that it moves and engages and provides endless visual pleasure and joy for their eye, mind and being.

Applying appropriation and collage, using detritus material that would otherwise have been discarded to create something painterly without using paint---I have a limitless source in the catalogs I get for free from stores and in the mail. Magazines provide a treasure trove of colors. It’s direct and green---literally taking the everyday and turning it into art. I allow for randomness and chance---tychism---in placement and composition. Never know what the piece will look like until I feel it’s done. One piece can be so involved it takes hours or weeks to complete using one source or many. Then I have it enlarged---graininess, pixels and all. The first 10 I did between 1996 to 2001. Then I resumed doing them again in spring of 2007.

For this exhibit I’ve included some Bic Pen Drawings I delicately rendered doodling from artbooks in bookstores to show how something mimetic---in this zeitgeist---can still convey feeling using the meekest of means.

So many ways of creating that does through my head. This is just one tangent, one vein, one stem, one style. Everytime a new idea diurnally comes my mindset is subject to change. I’m never the same, always in flux---constantly analyzing, editing and assimilating my latest thoughts. There’s so much art that’s been made and is being made both good and bad. Hopefully---in the broad spectrum and impressive lineage and continuum of art history---there’s room for mine and it’s well received.

Joselito Gamalinda


Joselito Gamalinda was born on August 27, 1967 in Manila, Philippines. The youngest of four sons, he moved with his family to the United States in 1974. He crew up in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. From a young age art, music and poetry have always been his passions. He attended Tyler School of Art, Temple University for a BFA in Painting. He has lived in Philadelphia since 1988. Besides creating art he has been bartending for the past 19 years at Woody’s. Not a day passes when he does not think about art and keeps it close to his heart. For him, creating reinforces and validates his existence---the examined life. Long overdue, “Detritus” is his debut.

Collage prints can be sized up to 5 x 6 feet. Big prints come in a limited edition of 5. Smaller prints in 10. Drawings in 3. Originals will be for sale in the future.

The artist can be reached at:

www.flickr.com/photos/joselitoart

email joselitoart@yahoo.com (also on Facebook)

cell 215.519.2426