Exploring possibilities that blossom when digital and traditional art converge, Jaime Jesus Pacena II’s works echo a courtship between dreaming and wakefulness, chaos and order, exploration and negotiation.
Pacena is a curator, visual artist, filmmaker, and educator based in Maginhawa Street, Quezon City. As a visual artist, his exhibitions extend to Manila, Cebu, Iloilo, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Italy, and Australia. He works as a video director for the advertising and music industry and founded, as its creative director, a multimedia art collective for cultural exchange called Bliss Market Laboratory (BMLab).
He also teaches at Asia Pacific College under the Multimedia Arts Department and curates for CANVAS.PH and Marahuyo Art Projects.
Pacena received various esteemed art grants and artist-in-residence programs in Asia. He was a grantee of Jenysys Programme for Creators by the Japan Foundation in 2010, Arts Network Asia Singapore in 2012, as well as The Asia Center Cultural Exchange Program by the Japan Foundation under BMLab in 2018, 2020 and 2021. For three years (2013, 2016, and 2019), he attended the Rikuzentakata Artist-in-Residence in Iwate, Japan.
Pacena was also one of the Philippine delegates of Sheffield Documentary Festival 2021 facilitated by the Film Development Council of the Philippines, for his project in development, CUTSph.
He is currently developing his script for his first feature film under the Ricky Lee Scriptwriting Workshop Batch 24 titled "Kono Basho."
Quaderno by J. Pacena II
Maybe The Night | acrylic on canvas (2018)
Dazed and Confused | acrylic on canvas (2020)
Little By Little 1 | acrylic on 245 gsm acid-free acrylic block muse paper (2020)
Little By Little 2 | acrylic on 245 gsm acid-free acrylic block muse paper (2020)
Atapang Atao | mixed media on canvas (2013)