One of the works by Jayson Oliveria presented at his solo exhibition 'Cyclops' curated by Roberto Chabet at The Art Center, SM Megamall from 24 August - 6 September 2005.

Excerpt from the exhibition essay by Lena Cobangbang:
'Myths proffer morals that are often realized in themes and characters used in illustrating a divine universal truth. Recycled, reworked, reconfigured, these myths are not impervious from turning into cliches. Painting, in fact, is not exempt from such exercise, as it constantly bares these in its very practice and essence - a fact held profitable for its obstinacy, most especially for its perpetrator. The artist then has the power to give his work a level of enlightenment by transformative sublimation or even debasement.

Jayson Oliveria knowingly treads these divergent paths of contention; yet he chooses not to side with one or the other. Rather, he retains an obtuseness in each foothold despite the literalness or its self-reflexivity. The encyclopedic source of his images is appropriated from new clippings, tabloids, weather forecasts, gift catalogs, painting manuals, dictionaries, even his past previous works. These images reveal an impulse towards a set of definitions. Oliveria's aim is termed by Frederic Jameson (quoting AJ Greimas) as 'transcoding' - 'that of a signification leading to nothing' as what has merely transpired is 'a transposition from one level of language to another.'

Thus, Oliveria's keen awareness of the mutability of meaning and its referent visual code leads him to operate within such failures and breakdowns. This is evident in Language, Confusion And Jam where the title in rounded capitals garish colors attempts to cover up the crudely painted figures of a girl in a petticoat and her monkey. The 'blunder' here is pronounced yet remains cryptic. On the other hand, Stunt Doubles, composed of plaster casts of cartoon ghost figures, displays a failure in its own conception of form yet succeeds at this very failure in getting at its own 'ghostliness.'

Most of the works however are textual/visual riddles devised to point out latent duplicity. This is evident in Liar and True False. A Shady Resemblance To Life As We Ordinarily Know It is made up of twin panels of a drab still life of fruits and a silhouetted jumble of basic solids. Tomorrow The Abyss Will Open and Everything Will Vanish In A Final Catastrophe is a composition of lines that either form a parentheses or a monkey's ass. And then there's also this utter opaqueness in Information Zero where its own nullification is doubly referred to with a nondescript picture of a nail hammered to a wall tacked on a corkboard.

Oliveria conspires to an either-you-get-it-or-you-don't engagement. Reminiscent of the ploy Odysseus set up on the Cyclops Polyphemus whose eye he poked with a flaming olive branch to escape, turning the brute into a tragicomic character. Was this brought on by a monocular vision or by the innate flaw of its being a monster whose downfall is predicated on its disfigurement? - a question Oliveria poses in his juxtaposition of images and texts. Nonetheless Oliveria flouts all pretense in a transcendent moral. Moreover, he attenuates this in the formidable read-made-ness of his produced aphoristic cliches.'