Paper Presentation at the 33rd International Conference on Psychology and the Arts, Universitie de Reims, Champagne-Ardenne, France June 29-July 4, 2016

1. PAINTING AND INCARCERATION: JIE’URs SANCTUM (slide 1)
(slide 2)
PAPER PRESENTATION GUIDE (See accompanying Powerpoint)
I knew him since the 1990s when he joined our group of Visual Artists who banded together with the
intention of “proliferating Art to the masses” and this young man hang around our acronym-ed group
called the “S.A.H.O!” (Surrealists at Home, Obviously) which describes a colloquial term in our local
language, Waray, a lingua franca meaning “I don’t care..” But the enigma behind it is that we cared, we
did care..! And we dubbed our canvasses as paradoxical as our personalities!
Jie’Ur was the Joseph the Dreamer type and built a reputation of a gadfly who “stung others to
thought”, this was a maverick, street smart ingénue from the city’s neighboring towns who bummed
around with the upper strata of sons and scions of the downtown Chinese taipans and the headbangers
of local rock bands who spent more of their time gulching beer and marijuana than listening to their
Grandmothers.
There was a time when he neither had a bite to eat nor that “stupid amber sea” (beer) to gulch, or pot to
riffer that he hung around beerhouses, stinging the drunks with his Sophistic questions: “Why do you
drink? What’s your problem, Man? Yah like your drink without your dentures? Go home, the cocks are
dying with sore throat!” (meaning it’s morning). Then he had too much moolah that he dropped by and
invited me for a grand dine-in in a plushy resto. I did eat my fill and he just SIGNED the bill!
Then it followed: Riding in flashy cars, (I don’t know where he got them) sometimes he ordered the
chauffeur around, had pretty girls in tow…but still he had that “gadfly” spirit, of asking questions,
flabbergasting “normal” individuals and bringing out the “abnormal” in them…and contemplating on
the people around him he relegated his analyses to his paintings. They were dark and brooding,
quizzical or ironic…yet purely enigmatic.
(Slides 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
In 2010, I got stunned. Jie’Ur was embroiled in a “Buy-Bust” Operation of the PDEA (Philippine Drug
Enforcement Agency) and was incarcerated. The prima facie was the possession of illegal drugs,
namely Cocaine, which we call in our country “Shabu”.
Laws on Drug Enforcement in our country are very strict, bordering on 6 years to Reclusion Perpetua,
and with Jie’Urs case, it would depend on the amount of grams he was caught with, regardless whether
he was pushing for a cartel, drug taipan or lord. But with today’s newly elected President, Rodrigo
Duterte, the “Punisher” as we call him, it is Death Penalty. Jie’Urs case still has to be tried.
(slide 7)
Years in the jail gave him the Retribution which was expected by Incarceration. It was easy for such,
I’d say, because before he was imprisoned, he followed the Ananda Marga path, and did Khirtans,
Bhramachari, yoga, meditation and searched for the Divine in himself. He turned vegetarian and cut

2. short drinking that “stupid amber sea” (our local San Miguel Beer). He turned to the canvas and easel,
even did little inventions to eradicate the drudgery of Prison life.
(slides 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
When asked how he was treated inside, he said he was treated fine. His co-inmates rallied around him
and had the special privilege as “mayo-mayor” (jail inmate head). For this special talent he even had
access to the outside world with a smartphone, which only application was Facebook. The last time I
visited him (that was 2010), the guards scrutinized the Art magazines I was bringing in as a gift.
Gregarious as he was, he made lots of friends inside and painted their portraits. He did it commercially,
and earned with this usefulness. He exhibited his works in special Jail occasions and became a favorite
of all—from the Warden to jail guards and co-inmates. But life inside was not always that easy he said,
because of his special talent he was made to do this and that, especially like “whitewashing” things ala
Tom Sawyer, literally and figuratively.
(slides 14, 15)
But oh, correction please from my Abstract, when supertyphoon Haiyan surged into our city and
reduced it to debris and littered the streets with corpses and rubble, Jie-Ur did not go out of the City’s
penitentiary. Situated on the higher ground of the city’s district it withstood the tsunami-like Storm
Surge and the 316kph winds…they released some jail inmates, on the pretext that they would come
back and finish their sentence, else they would be hunted down forever…or perish outside. Jie-Ur
never did. Surge or no surge, the Jail was his Sanctum. His Retribution. His Self.
Jie-Ur still “languishes” in jail. If you call that languishing..He seems happy with his lot. When ask
what his fervent wish was, it was only to be Happy and Peaceful..he strives to be thus, even in this
chaotic place, he says. Is it in the Jail, or the outside world? He says Both.
Painting keeps him 99% happy he says, it is a “celebrating” mood. While painting, he says, he paints
Inside his Self, what comes out is the outward image revealed. 1% is when some people ask him to
paint what they like. When he comes out of jail he says, he will paint his greatest “Obra” (Work), about
what it is in Jail..but it is still not the time to start in that place, nor in this place.
Jie-Ur thanked me for making him his topic for my paper and made some regrets because he could not
fully impart many things as our only conduit was his little App in his smartphone. There were many
things curtailed since the last time we met in person. I told him yesterday:
“Yes, Jie’Ur, God will provide our little escapade from the delusion of Reality...