Palumpalo

In street slang, palumpalo describes an intense wanting. It can mean being hyper, eager, determined, completely captivated by someone or something, or in words spoken in jest in dark alleys, pasitib. The word contains a sense of pursuit, of reaching beyond what is already in front of you. And for Joey Cobcobo, it speaks to a mindset that has shaped both his life and his artistic practice.

Cobcobo’s works in Palumpalo grew out of a recent trip to Hong Kong following his receipt of the People's Vote Award at the Sovereign Asian Art Prize. While the recognition was unexpected, what stayed with him most was the opportunity to experience the city alone. Previous visits had been brief and structured. This time, he found himself wandering through Kowloon without an itinerary, spending long hours on foot and paying attention to details that often escape notice.

Among the figures who occupied his thoughts was Tsang Tsou-choi, better known as the King of Kowloon. For decades, Tsang covered walls, utility boxes, and public surfaces with dense calligraphic writings that many once considered little more than graffiti. Today, surviving examples are preserved and protected as important pieces of Hong Kong's cultural history. The transformation of public perception surrounding Tsang's work struck a chord with Cobcobo. As a practicing artist right after graduation, he has an intimate knowledge of how artists often operate without knowing how their efforts will be received. Meaning is not always recognized immediately. Sometimes it takes years, decades even, before it is understood.

Questions of persistence and belief run throughout the exhibition. Although Cobcobo is widely known for his printmaking, the works presented here move decisively into painting. Black dominates many of the surfaces. Figures and images emerge only partially before dissolving back into the paint. A swooping bird appears, a dainty flower takes shape. Streets and buildings seemingly appear beyond a haze, and then disappear again. His paintings ask viewers to participate in the act of seeing, allowing imagination to complete what remains unresolved.

In Pier 9 (Bearing Precious Seed), Cobcobo reflects on the uncertainties that accompany artistic practice. He compares making art to casting seeds into the wind and trusting that some of them will eventually take root. The work carries traces of his experiences in Hong Kong, but it is equally a meditation on the gratitude of being back home. Recognition from peers, opportunities to travel, and the chance to continue making work all become part of the painting's emotional landscape.

The large-scale Uwak (The King of Kowloon) places a black bird above a dense urban environment. Seen from this elevated perspective, the city becomes a field of overlapping structures, pathways, and histories. The crow serves as both witness and guide, moving between places that might seem distant from one another yet share similar conditions. The crowded streets of Kowloon echo memories of F. Martinez in Mandaluyong, where Cobcobo grew up. Different cities often reveal the same stories of labor, improvisation, and survival.

Those parallels continue in Spaghetti Wire vs. The Golden Serpent. The painting draws connections between the tangled electrical lines common in settlements in Metro Manila and the energy of Hong Kong's vertical skyline. Rather than presenting one place as superior to another, the work observes how cities grow through accumulation, with wires, roads, buildings, and people becoming part of a constantly shifting network shaped by necessity and ambition.

A quieter reflection appears in Only One Life, inspired by Cobcobo's visit to the Hong Kong Museum of Art, where he encountered works by Claude Monet. The experience reminded him of concerns that have long informed his thinking about nature and the environment. Recent controversies surrounding the cutting of trees and the continued loss of green spaces in the Philippines lend added urgency to these reflections. Flowers float in the circular composition, appearing less as direct representations than as memories held together by movement and sensation.

The exhibition concludes with Palo-Palo, Pier 1–8, a series of vertical paintings that resemble posts, stakes, or fragments of unfinished structures. Their forms suggest both construction and confrontation. Interspersed among them are references to the makahiya plant, known for folding its leaves inward when touched. The contrast is deliberate: hardness and sensitivity exist side by side, and resilience does not exclude vulnerability.

Throughout Palumpalo, Cobcobo resists the desire to explain everything, leaving room for uncertainty. Images remain suspended between appearance and disappearance, between memory and observation. What emerges most clearly is a sense of forward movement driven by curiosity, gratitude, and the desire to excel in his craft, to keep going despite the rest of the world not understanding.