Visual artists Amy Aragon and Jay Ticar open their homecoming show Gambatte Kudasai, Ingat Ka at Hiraya Gallery on June 21.  The works combine “abstractions and painterly gestures, photo-based images, mementos and text.”

Graduates of the College of Fine Arts at UP Diliman, and accomplished painters, the young couple spent three years in Tokyo, Japan, where Jay finished his Master of Fine Arts degree at the Tama Art University under a Japanese government scholarship.  The show revolves around their experiences living in Tokyo—the day-to-day routines, and the observations and insights gained from the experience. 
“Gambatte kudasai” is both a greeting and an encouragement.  Literally, it means “do your best” and is used to send children off to school and exams, politicians off to campaign, athletes off to the Olympics, and so on.  “Ingat ka” is likewise a greeting that literally means “take care” and is used to send people off, end telephone conversations, among other things.  These two greetings were chosen by the artists as the title for their show to exemplify the thoughts, words and gestures they imbibed as artists, and the lessons learned from their 1000 days in Japan:  “the show is about our Japan-acquired reflexes, what we learned from understanding their context and how these reflexes are articulated together with what is personal and Filipino.”

While living in Japan, the couple also learned more about themselves, about being Filipino.  In Jay’s words:  “my stay in Japan has made me more conscious of who I am and how different my sensibilities are as a Filipino.”  It is one of the epiphanies of the outsider in any foreign context, and the irony of exile.
The show revolves around three major themes:  the self and the community, respect for rules, and happiness as a choice.

It is often noted that the strength of Japanese society lies in the willingness of individual Japanese to play down individuality for the good of the bigger community.  This tension between self and society, between inside and outside, is expressed in the paintings by juxtaposing interior and exterior scenes, as well as elements that are noticeably Japanese and images that are distinctly Filipino in the same canvas, such as the macopa branch in Morning Proverb.

Even the most casual observer of Japan will immediately notice the strict adherence to rules—trains follow the schedules to the precise minute, meetings start on time, and everything functions like clockwork.

The weekly gathering of young people at Harajuku has become an institution—youngsters in various costumes singing, dancing, and performing in the streets with abandon.  In one sense, it is an expression of non-conformity, and yet, when the day ends, the costumes are taken off, folded, and returned to their oversized bags, and the kids go home dressed in their regular sneakers and t-shirts.  This is also true for the cherry blossom viewing parties and bonenkai (“forget the year party” where people gather to drink in celebration of the year about to end) in which copious amounts of alcohol are consumed, and people tend to be rowdy and noisy.  Having let out steam, it is expected that everything will return to normal the next day.  There is a system, a time and a place for everything.  On the everyday level, “the bento box is an example of Japanese order manifested even in the commonplace.”

Jay and Amy observed how hard the Japanese work, and how hard they play.  Correctly, they note that in a country where employees regularly put in twelve-hour days, and where the suicide rate is highest in the world,  “the choice to be happy is clearly an answer to the stressful life.”  Even if this desire for happiness is manifested in high alcohol intake or a culture of consumption, the couple sees this as an affirmation of life—“the manifestation of energy in pursuit of happiness.”

It has been a year since they returned to Manila, and Jay and Amy now have sufficient distance and perspective to appreciate their experience.  This show is both a summing up of their three years in Japan, and a thoughtful prelude to their next sojourn, as they prepare to return on another grant to a country they have learned to appreciate and love.