THE University of the Philippines Cebu (UP Cebu) is celebrating the 43rd Jose Joya Awards & Exhibition for the whole month of February. The annual painting competition, one of the longest running arts competition for students in the Philippines, is named after the late national artist Jose T. Joya, the former dean of the College of Fine Arts in UP Diliman.
Joya, together with Cebuano artists, founded the Fine Arts Program of UP Cebu in 1975, the first Fine Arts program outside of Manila.
“Aptly enough, to give homage to the kind of effort dean Joya started, the gallery is named after him,” said Jay Jore, Fine Arts program coordinator, curator and director of the Jose T. Joya Gallery.
The artworks currently displayed in the gallery were created by the artistic minds of the students of UP Cebu under the Fine Arts program. The students were given a free hand on what ideas to explore, develop and express on canvas. Jore was, at first, uncertain of the quality of work the students would submit, since majority of the participants are on their first year of college.
“Apparently, I was caught by great surprise by the kind of quality and output that the students have produced.” Jore said. He added that because of K-12, freshmen students now are more mature than the usual first-years they have had. Most of the finalists for this year’s competition are works submitted by first-year students.
The Jose T. Joya gallery aims to promote and celebrate arts, encouraging and engaging people to understand that art makes up a huge part of local culture and needs to preserved. (Matthew Sulla, USC Intern)