It’s hard not to run into Jappy Agoncillo. At the very least, you’ve probably seen his trademark style on stickers for Satchmi and She’s Only Sixteen, or chanced upon any of his public murals on walls from all-too familiar C5, Pasig to PS 9 in Brooklyn, New York—range that definitely qualifies as a feat in Philippine street art, though not surprising in the least for the catch-all artist.
Jappy’s art has gone bigger—quite literally—in the form of a mural adorning the walls of the Johnnie Walker House in Poblacion. When asked if he considers this his biggest mural ever, Jappy does admit it’s the tallest, but he “couldn’t be too sure” if it was the largest, humbly citing the windows occupying a good amount of the walls’ surface area, one of the few areas his paint cans didn’t get to touch.
Jappy isn’t a stranger to working with brands, and his main inspiration from the mural came from none other than Johnnie Walker’s rich history and strong branding. “They sent me ‘tasting notes.’ I did my own bit of ‘research’ and designed from there,’” Jappy said. “I believe we wanted to go with a very simple approach, keeping colors and elements minimal but prominent. I used Black Label as the main reference point, so I took the idea of its smokiness, and its smooth texture. I also absolutely love the color of whisky, so that was a big factor in the design.”
The project started in mid-January of this year, and Jappy previously painted a statue for Johnnie Walker at one of their events. If you walk inside the Johnnie Walker House, its neon lights have also been designed by him. “I think it was those two projects with them, as well as them seeing that I have been doing bigger and bigger pieces lately that got them to consider me for the project. We met up, set up specifics and went straight into it,” he said.
If there’s one thing that you should know about Jappy it’s this: he’s a total fanboy. Thus, it’s no wonder that his foray into the art scene was heavily influenced by his love for film and comics and later on, the street art subculture. “I can’t say for certain where it all began for me, but I was a big fan of things that were in close proximity to street art for a very long time: skateboarding, punk/alternative music, hip hop, and of course arts and illustration. I would do sticker slaps and small tags when I was in high school, just on street signs or telephone poles,” he shared. It wasn’t until college when he took art more seriously, though. “I experimented with different mediums and quite accidentally got started in the mural game. Through murals, I found the confidence to do bigger art pieces, eventually taking my illustrations and ideas to the streets whenever I could,” he added, before citing Shepard Fairey, Nychos, DXTR, D*Face, and Meggs as his artistic inspirations.
Following the Johnnie Walker House mural and the success of his first solo exhibit in Pineapple Lab Makati (only open until Holy Week), Jappy only seems to remain in the scene’s radar until further notice, both here and elsewhere. “I have a group show in New York with my collective there, FOBBS, in collaboration with the Philippine Consulate for Asian-American Heritage Month,” he said. “My online store is almost up, though progress is slow as I only work on it on my downtime but that should be up soon. Other than that, I haven’t been working on personal/street projects so I’m very excited to get back to that.”
Not bad, for an artist whose pieces are slowly becoming as familiar to Filipinos. Catch Jappy’s mural at the Johnnie Walker House in Poblacion, at Kalayaan Ave. corner Doña Carmen Street.
