Wazzup Pilipinas!?
In the bustling heart of Makati City, a profound silence has taken root at Art Cube Philippines. It is the silence of an empty studio, the quiet of a hospital room, and the heavy stillness of a son returning home. Filipino artist Julio Jose “Jojo” Austria has unveiled his 18th solo exhibition, titled FMLA, a collection that transforms bureaucratic paperwork into a heartbreakingly beautiful testimony of love, labor, and survival.
The Paper Trail of a Son's Duty
The exhibition’s title is a cold, clinical acronym: the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). In the United States, it represents unpaid, job-protected time off to care for family. For Austria—a first-generation migrant who has worked at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York for nine years—this act was his only bridge back to the Philippines.
The show’s poster is not mere graphic design; it is a reproduction of the actual form Austria filled out to secure eight weeks of leave—from January 24 to March 21, 2026—to care for his mother, Gloria Sapida Austria. A former music teacher at St. Scholastica’s College, Gloria suffered a stroke in 2023. This exhibition serves a dual purpose: it is both a creative milestone and a lifeline, with sales proceeds dedicated to her mounting medical expenses.
A Divided Temporality
Exhibition notes writer Jevijoe Vitug describes Austria’s current state as a "divided temporality". The artist exists between two worlds:
The Laborer: In New York, he endures the "kayod-kalabaw" (working like a carabao) routine—a cyclical endurance of "wake, labor, return, repeat".
The Caregiver: In Cavite, he tends to a mother on a gurney, a scene captured in the abstracted 5 x 4 feet masterpiece, The Distance She Carried Me.
In this show, the term Leave of Absence (LOA) takes on a ghostly double meaning. While it signifies his physical absence from his job and studio, that very absence creates a "different kind of presence" within the oil on canvas works.
The Works: From MoMA to Motherhood
The exhibition features seven new paintings that bridge the gap between the clinical and the soulful:
Painting Theme Inspiration
Orbit of Response Musical Legacy
Features sheet music of Debussy’s Clair de Lune, his mother's favorite.
Algorithm of Decay Labor & Endurance
Uses the carabao as a symbol of the "exhaustion of a laborer worked to death".
A Stanchion Story Exclusivity
Inspired by the physical barricades at his workplace at MoMA.
In Motion Consumerism
References the products for sale within the MoMA Design Store.
Vitug draws daring parallels between Austria’s visual language and the greats of art history. He likens Austria’s "expanded ethos" to Joseph Beuys, who blurred the lines between life and art, and sees shadows of Picasso’s Guernica in Austria's refracted, symbolic imagery.
Abstraction as Testimony
Ultimately, FMLA is more than a display of skill; it is a reflection of the global Filipino experience. It captures the "strain of sustaining an artistic practice while laboring for survival abroad". Through Austria’s brush, abstraction becomes a form of testimony, insisting that a person's presence is not stable—it is something "assembled, contested, and, ultimately, painted into being".
FMLA is currently on view at Art Cube Philippines in Makati City and will run until April 7, 2026. It is a rare opportunity to witness art that doesn't just reflect a biography, but absorbs the very grit and grace of a life lived for others.
Ross is known as the Pambansang Blogger ng Pilipinas - An Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Professional by profession and a Social Media Evangelist by heart.
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