CHAOS THEORY

His choice of medium is bonded to tradition, but his preferred mode of expression could well be abstract disruption. As an artist, Jigger Cruz is resolutely nonconformist

- Bambina Olivares.

In an alternate life, Jigger Cruz could well be flipping burgers at a fast-food joint in the United States. Instead, he is in the thick of preparing for that rarest of things in a mid-career artist's life: a major solo museum exhibition at the age of 41.

Not that he wouldn't have been any good as a short-order cook. Or a cleaner. Or house-sitter. Or as a nursing home attendant, a job Cruz himself held in the few months he spent in the US as a struggling artist. He happens to be one of those people—affable, polite, well-read, a bit self-effacing, with a good sense of humour—who has the enviable knack of doing well in whatever he chooses to do. He paints, he sculpts, he makes music, and he has even been known to bake an excellent cassava cake.

His rise to success in the last 15 years has been quite spectacular, even though he sold next to nothing in his first three shows. His works were going for as little as PhP4,000 for a small job in 2008, and yet there were still no takers at the time. Today, a work by Jigger Cruz, especially in the secondhand market, easily commands millions.

When he learnt that one of his artworks went for a million at auction for the first time, he was dumbfounded. “I couldn't believe it,” he recalls, genuinely surprised that someone had forked out that much for something he had created. “I thought to myself, is this a joke? Who is this crazy person?”