Jerico, Portrait, 2015

Jerico / Jerico Cabrera Carandang

Murals

June 12, 2015

Filipino artist, Jerico Cabrera Carandang, stationed in Rome, Italy, is known for his expressionist paintings and murals. His artwork is unique and distinctive, depicting primarily human faces with different expressions. Jerico was born in Rosario, the Philippines, in 1992. When he was ten years old, he moved to Rome with his parents, which then became his city of adoption. He first got in touch with the street culture when he was 13 by creating graffiti in hidden and abandoned places and signing himself off as "Dekoner." While in high school, Jerico developed a strong interest in the History of Art, and he further studied several artists, such as Van Gogh, Lucian Freud, and Francis Bacon, from which he takes inspiration. His first canvases are mainly portraits, either self-portraits or not.

Jerico - Rome, 2015
Jerico - Rome, 2015

Big City Life Project and Collaborations

The most important project involving Jerico and other 19 artists was the Big City Life organized by 999Contemporary in collaboration with ATER – Azienda Territoriale per l'Edilizia Residenziale and Comune di Roma in 2015. The project involved working on the side of a 14 meters tall building, home to more than 500 people in the TorMarancia neighborhood, one of Rome's outskirts. In this event, finding himself painting not just for himself but for a collective group of people, Jerico's artistic research further evolves. Titled Distanza Uomo-Natura (Distance Human-Nature), the murals represent the new divine creation in which there is a Japanese flower branch between Michelangelo's touching fingers. There is no sign of restlessness, but serenity is diffused through the use of cyan color. Thus, the background lets appear around itself.

Jerico - Il Cartone di SantAnna Abandoned, 2015. Photo by Valentino Bonacquisti
Jerico - Il Cartone di SantAnna Abandoned, 2015. Photo by Valentino Bonacquisti

Portraits and Murals: Jerico's Unmistakable Style

His works include fragmented faces, beaten expressions, scared eyes, and screaming existences asking for help while inexorably dissolving. The viewer can't do anything; there is no possibility of redemption. The souls are formed on the canvas, and the spectator gets caught by them, feeling the darkness and the mystery in himself/herself meanders of the human soul.

His research about portraits continues in the streets, creating both legal walls and Affissioni Abusive (Abusive Posting), a title of 6 posters illegally stuck on the walls of the historically working-class neighborhood Testaccio.

In 2019 the artist traveled to Naples, where in collaboration with the department of welfare Centro La Tenda he created a mural entitled Tieneme Ca' Te Tengo (Holding Me Holding You). Jerico expressed the themes of brotherhood and solidarity through two figures entwined in a hug. The same year at the invitation of the Casal de 'Pazzi Museum, he created a large-scale mural entitled Riflessi on the external wall. The museum, which houses numerous fossil finds, now has a stunning depiction of the ancient river that once flowed where the institution stands today.  

Jerico - Triptych Rome, 2014. Photo by Valentino Bonacquisti
Jerico - Triptych Rome, 2014. Photo by Valentino Bonacquisti

Street Artist at the Gallery: Jerico's Exhibitions

In December 2014, he exposed for the first time several of his works in a collective exhibition called The Pitiless Gaze of Hysterical Realism at the Popping Club in the Monti neighborhood, a place famous for art galleries and enoteche (wine bars), found just to the east of the Colosseum. Jerico's first ever solo exhibition, titled Fade to Blue, opened on March 12th, 2016, at White Noise Gallery in Rome.

Jerico lives and works in Rome.

Featured image: Photo of Jerico. All images copyright of the artist. 

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