Taymour Grahne Projects is pleased to present In the Belly, a solo exhibition by NYC based artist Jeanne F Jalandoni, opening on February 25 between 5-7pm at the Notting Hill 2 space (52 Lonsdale Road) as part of a joint opening across our 3 spaces.

Through her paintings and textiles, Jeanne F. Jalandoni - a 2nd generation New Yorker - attempts to navigate the complexities and tangibility of being culturally Filipino American and to draw out a mythological narrative that traces the complexities of inheriting two cultures. In her practice, the artist combines timelines by drawing from personal research that references early US empire documents of Filipinos, citing ancestral stories and childhood memories, while also subverting national symbols in her own myth-making.

In her first physical international solo show with Taymour Grahne Projects, Jalandoni contemplates cultural transition and inherited ancestral legacies. These themes reveal themselves in an origin story of her frequented carabao figure– a personification of Filipino American culture – and Jalandoni’s personal and ancestral stories emitted through objects and structures. The combination of allegorical subject matter, memories, and historical structures, parallel her simultaneous use of handmade textiles with oil painting. These works are set under varied blue night skies to subvert warm romanticized landscapes of early 20th century Western imaginings of the pacific tropics, while also setting intimate scenes to preserve family oral stories and memories.

Consuming Filipino cuisine has been largely associated with maintaining fragile ties to Jalandoni’s heritage. Food has also typically been a gauge of determining one’s Filipino-ness. In Out of Water, the prequel to The Drinking Well, a woman prepares a giant milkfish with a bolo knife. In the painting In the Belly, Jalandoni questions what is actually being consumed, and reveals that when a milkfish is cut in half, its belly exposes a facet of history. The carabao figure seen in The Drinking Well represents the cumulation of inheriting Filipino and American cultures in one body. She desperately drinks out of a water source containing Tita Flora’s Lamp, attempting to access and inherit memories from this other world. Her post-transformation is mimicked in the well’s plants, emerging as plant stems and growing into starfruit trees – a main produce of her lolo Vicente’s farm. In both paintings, fruit flies follow the glow of the lamp to ultimately become preserved in the amber gemstones.

Jalandoni reflects on her recent relationship to textile-making spurred on by the use of her lola Dorothy’s giant sewing box. This awakened connection to a generation that passed when she was a child, sparked an interest in researching the Philippines’ global contribution in textile production. Textile pieces such as the woven chickens, exemplify physical responses to these objects within active space, and transform animals from memories into objects. Skin rendered as Chinese porcelain, embodies the transition from vase to body, and is seen in the “Vessel” series, as well as Transformation (Vase). These works serve as new allegorical portraits that reflect the long standing cultural and economic relationship between China and the Philippines. Jalandoni seeks to peel back the layers that define what culture can be in order to provide a new access point into bicultural identity that surpasses stereotypical symbols and images associated with national identity.

Jeanne F. Jalandoni (b.1993) is a painter and textile artist born and based in New York City. Jeanne received her BFA in Studio Art with a concentration in painting from New York University (2015). Jeanne has had solo shows with Taymour Grahne Projects (2021; virtual), Real Art Ways (2019; Hartford, CT), the Little Underground Gallery/ Jefferson Market Library (2018; New York, NY), and the Berkshire Art Museum (2018; North Adams, MA). Jeanne has exhibited in various group shows including, “Wonder Women”, curated by Kathy Huang (2022; Jeffrey Deitch NY & LA), and “Ghost of Empires”, curated by Larry Ossei-Mensah (2022; Ben Brown Fine Arts Hong Kong & London), "Super Sarap", curated by Patricia Cariño Valdez (2019; Asia Society Texas, Houston, TX), and curated "Cultural Cousins: a show of Filipinx and Latinx artists" (2019; ChaShaMa, New York, NY). Jeanne was an artist-in-residence at 36 Chase & Barns Residency (2018; North Adams, MA), the Textile Arts Center (2021; Brooklyn, NY), and ChaNorth Artist Residency (2022; Pine Plains, NY). Jeanne has been awarded the 2019 Real Art Award (Hartford, CT), and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) Creative Engagement Grant (2019; New York, NY).