Before leaping into the all-encompassing uncertainties of a life lived as an artist, Joar Songcuya spent a decade as a seaman. Although he conquered continents, he realized he had yet to conquer himself and the depths that lie therein. In a fortuitous turn of events during the pandemic, he dropped everything to test the waters of being a full-time painter. While the pursuit can be unstable and capricious&ndash;what was intended to be a momentary detour became the main conquest: the adventure of a lifetime.

You can drown in an image if you stare long enough. Such is the power of art. Its currents can stir up internal and societal storms. Painter Joar Songcuya is no stranger to this concept. His brush strokes evoke a sense of longing and listlessness. His characters are out in the open but are seemingly entrapped by unknown forces. He then proceeds to ramp up the tension by utilizing techniques such as juxtaposing precise linework with heavy swaths of color.
This outlook may all be the aftermath of the voyages he had endured from the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea to the Caribbean and the Persian Gulf. Since birth, he&rsquo;s always in motion. &ldquo;Being on a ship as a baby, spending my early years in a seaport in Luzon, and then reaching my teenage years by the river and coasts of Panay Island had a very big influence on why I&rsquo;m so drawn to bodies of water. I was surrounded by bodies of water.&rdquo; Even as we speak, he&rsquo;s busy &ldquo;reading, writing, contemplating, and walking around the coasts of La Union for sunsets.&rdquo;
Born in a maritime nation and launched into an expedition that took him to 50 countries and 86 international shipping ports and terminals&mdash;the sea has altered his life trajectory. He&rsquo;s the embodiment of how temporary migrations can bring immutable changes. Fresh from his major solo exhibition, Pilgrimage to the Ancient Seas, at Art Central Hong Kong, Joar catches up with L&rsquo;Officiel and reflects on how going with the flow can make a profound difference in art-making.

As a self-taught painter, what were your earliest recollections of being drawn to the arts and bodies of water? Tell us about your upbringing.
I was born in Iloilo but before I turned three months old, my mother brought me to Manila via a ship. We relocated to a seaport town of Hondagua, Quezon Province until I was four. When I was five, we were back to Iloilo, the Panay Island in Visayas. My mother left the Philippines to work, and it was my grandmother and my brothers who raised me. We lived on a farm 20 to 30 meters away from the river. This family farm is situated between mountains, hills, rivers, and coastlines bordering the entire island by the Panay Gulf, Guimaras Strait, and Visayan Sea.
The farm where I grew up was a bit remote so we didn&rsquo;t have electricity growing up. We have this 20-inch &times; 18-inch black and white screen TV powered by a five-pound battery but we only use it for one to two hours every other day to watch news and my grandma&rsquo;s favorite telenovela. Charging this battery once a week required us to walk five kilometers, and was a bit costly so there were also weeks that we don&rsquo;t charge it. This lack of access to electricity made me spend most of my time outdoors like rice fields, mountains, rivers, and my grandmother&rsquo;s garden. There were three houses on the farm: my grandma&rsquo;s, my aunt&rsquo;s, and my uncle&rsquo;s so I got a few cousins to spend time with as a child. We played, we swam, we helped at the farm, and we drew sometimes on the back of calendar papers. Everything appeared like art-making for us. I have one aunt who&rsquo;s a reader; she collects Reader&rsquo;s Digest and magazines with so many beautiful pictures on them. I guess that&rsquo;s how I started being fascinated by colors at an early age. When household chores were done and we behaved well during the day, we were rewarded with TV time to watch cartoons.
People are often reminded of Van Gogh&rsquo;s style when looking at your works. Is he among your major influences? Who and what are your influences?
I was first inspired by the seascapes of J.M.W. Turner because he&rsquo;s known for his seascapes, then Claude Monet for capturing light, and then Van Gogh for his raw execution of color and brushwork. These are pretty popular Western names I would encounter even just by walking around foreign cities, museums, bookshops, and even airports. The art world, especially for painting, is very Eurocentric.
In recent years, I found myself asking who am I without all these influences? I&rsquo;m a Filipino, I&rsquo;m from Asia, and the circumstances and stories from the Global South are so different from the Global North. I need to think and create art as an Asian. These questions led me to appreciate the works of Filipina artist Pacita Abad and her immigrant experience, Cambodian painter Svay Ken who was a hotel worker for 40 years, the expressive and emotional paintings of Indonesian painter Affandi, the cultural and political works of the Palestinian sculptor and painter Sliman Mansour, the self-portraits of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, the poetry and art of Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña, the biographical paintings of Pakistani painter Salman Toor, the South African artist Marlene Dumas, and the self-taught Filipina painter Bree Jonson who&rsquo;s also trained in engineering before she pursued the arts. I am lately drawing inspiration from autodidacts, working-class artists, women, queer, Asian, and colored artists.
How did you become a marine engineer? Was it something you initially pursued?
I grew up surrounded by bodies of water but working on a ship was never my plan. My mother was in Brunei at that time suggesting I should take up culinary or restaurant courses to follow her in Brunei. I wanted to take up architecture but then we didn&rsquo;t have the money for my studies. I was told about a Marine Engineering scholarship at John B. Lacson Foundation Maritime University (formerly Iloilo Maritime Academy). I took the entrance exam, I applied for the Norwegian company scholarship and I got in.
Pictures paint a thousand words, can you share some of the most memorable experiences you&rsquo;ve had while visiting at least 50 countries?
There&rsquo;s a lot to think from that decade of life at sea but these are my most memorable images&mdash;to see the pyramids of Egypt, to hold my first snow in Quebec, to taste Nigerian mango, the women in saris on the streets of India, the first shirt I bought in Indonesia, the local ice cream in Istanbul, petting the cats in Russia, the smell of flower fields in Holland, dancing with the disco lights in Brazil, the noodle soups and dumplings in Dalian China, the orange juice terminal in Australia, the seals by the Magellan Strait, the initiation rites at the equator, the sightings of butterflies at sea, the country of Malta, the beaches of Gran Canaria, the birds of Gibraltar, the music and paintings at the hotel in Malaga, my first bite of pizza at Ravenna, the market in Dahomey Benin, playing bowling and eating Borscht in Odessa, my first time meeting each oceans in every continents of the world, dancing until morning in Poland, the yachts in Slovenia, getting lost in Taiwan, the savannas, snow caps of mountain ranges, icy rivers, coastlines, forests, cityscapes, foreign towns, container ports, canals of Suez, Panama, Houston, Amsterdam, Kiel, tanker terminals in Venezuela, Rotterdam, Middle East, USA, and Korea.

Any favorite country or off-the-grid destination you can share?
Malta is my favorite. It&rsquo;s the most beautiful place I have ever seen. The ancient architecture, the temples, and the old buildings make me feel like being transported back in time. The water surrounding this island country is so blue and so clear. It&rsquo;s like being inside a souvenir postcard. I was so inspired by its grandness and beauty that I immediately looked for an art store when I was there. I went back to the ship with a bag of pencils, sketchbooks, watercolors, and small canvases.
What differentiates the Philippine Islands from the rest of the world?
The familiarity of the place; the dialects of people; the color of our skin; the sari-sari stores; the children on the streets; the smell of ihaw-ihaw; the jeepney music; the laughter and smiles of Pinoys on the streets, malls, LRT trains, and buses; the tropical heat, the textured images everywhere; sweet expressions; hospitability, and openness when approached by a stranger.
Having seen so many places, what has travel taught you?
In every place I&rsquo;ve been to, I would always hear the word &ldquo;Kabayan.&rdquo; &ldquo;Kabayan, taga saan ka?&rdquo; It&rsquo;s a beautiful word when meeting a fellow Filipino. To see a fellow Filipino outside of the Philippines gives this sense of comfort that you are not alone. Home is one kabayan word away.
How would you describe statelessness?
The dispersion of Filipinos around the world, the world becoming a place for every Filipino to live, to help shape a foreign country but these places can only offer the bare minimum to protect them. The Filipinos inside our country don&rsquo;t have total freedom and are chained into colonial mentalities that strip them of a dignified life. This feeling of entrapment within and outside our land is statelessness.
What&rsquo;s the greatest and worst feeling when surrounded by the sea?
Seastorm. Seeing nothing but darkness outside of your cabin window and the howling of the violent wind. The ship swelling, the towering waves blanketing the ship deck, the crashing of tidal waves against the metal body of the ship sending the ship into intense convulsion, the fear that one wrong movement and the great wave could topple the ship. This is the worst feeling. You wake up the next day with the lifejacket wrapped around your body with the rosary beads on your palm while the morning sunlight enters through the cabin window. When the storm has passed and the sea is in its peaceful and most stable state again &mdash; that&rsquo;s the greatest feeling.
What prompted you to leap into becoming a full-time artist? How has art changed your life?
When I started working on the ship, art was just a pastime. After my duty hours at the engine department, I would spend a few hours drawing. During my first few years onboard, we didn&rsquo;t have that much access to the internet so that lack of connection outside of the ship inspired me to get back to art. When there are sea storms, when I miss home, when I&rsquo;m scared, when I feel this overwhelming isolation, when I&rsquo;m very tired from work &mdash; art has become a constant companion. I would then spend the next contracts bringing art materials and canvases, teaching myself to use colored pencils and watercolors until I proceeded with acrylic and oil paints.
Artmaking was just a plain hobby to combat the stress of being away from the land until last February 2020, I suffered from appendicitis for 10 days while in transit from Africa to Spain. I survived that ordeal and I underwent surgery after arriving in Algeciras, Spain. I was flown in a wheelchair then after a few weeks the entire Philippines was put into lockdown due to the COVID breakout. I shared the studio apartment with an artist friend named Shannah Orencio who generously guided me through everything with her discipline and consistency. I decided to paint with her. I occupied the second floor while she occupied the ground floor. The world stopped but for me, it was the chance to start something. Every day, thousands of people in the Philippines and around the world were taken away by the virus but the two of us held onto each other through painting. Painting has become a source of comfort again. I was painting non-stop that year, participating in virtual exhibitions in the Philippines then by January 2021, I had my solo exhibition. I was directed towards doing full-time art in a time of crisis. Art has changed me in so many ways; it helped me better understand the world and myself, more than just aiming for stability in life. When I was working on the ship, I was financially stable. When I became an artist, everything was a challenge financially and emotionally but it&rsquo;s all worth it.

Stylistically speaking, how much have you evolved since your first exhibition The History of Water?
It&rsquo;s only been three years since that exhibition, but it feels like I worked for a very long time. I mounted four solo presentations over dozens of group exhibitions and collaborative projects. I have met so many incredible artists in the Philippines and abroad. I have seen myself evolve from painting and drawing to text, video, and even performance.
There&rsquo;s this quote by Bruce Lee, &ldquo; Be Like Water.&rdquo; Are you like water? How would you describe your creative process?
This intuitiveness and embodiment of water provided me with the baseline in art &mdash; just keep the flow, the will to continue flowing, and shapeshifting through the circumstances you are in.
Since geography is a constant source of tension in politics, and the economy&mdash;would you say that you&rsquo;re politically motivated regarding subjects and motifs?
I never really thought about this since I only paint the things I know. I&rsquo;m only familiar with seascapes, the ships, and the seamen, but the more I create, the more I&rsquo;m being immersed in subject matters that talk about deeper issues like the plights of people I represent and the stories and conditions of Filipinos around the world. I&rsquo;ve been a seafarer for over a decade, my mother spent over 15 years as a domestic helper and caregiver, and most of my family were earning so little as farmers in the province. What is this endless cycle of leaving home in order to survive? I cannot refuse not to be politically motivated because my family and personal history were shaped and woven by certain conditions.
What keeps you going? What&rsquo;s your North Star?
My love for my family &mdash; my mother who went outside of the Philippines to take care of other people to provide for us, my aunts and uncles who take pride in toiling the land, my late grandmother, Erlinda Songcuya, who raised us as her own despite not being able to read and write. Through her devotion to life whether she&rsquo;s gardening, cooking, farming, or dressmaking &mdash; I have found the immense power of a creative hand. Seeing this family name on every exhibition poster feels like redemption.

Oceanic Transmission: Joar Songcuya

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