Church Loves You is a monthly party in Poblacion, Makati — born from the vision of Xtina and Paulo, with its name drawn from the “Elsa Loves You” sign in Nora Aunor’s Himala. Jer came in as the poster designer and eventually became a co-founder, shaping Church’s visual identity into something unmistakable: playful Catholic-influenced branding that nods to the Philippines’ dominant religious culture without taking itself too seriously. As creative director, he designs each edition’s theme, artwork, and — when the night calls for it — the stage and production itself.

Behind the decks, Jer describes his Church sets as “high energy, progressive, dance-influenced with cheeky pop edits that make the crowd go wild.” There are no guilty pleasures — Church is the room where he can play the fun, unexpected songs that don’t fit anywhere else, and every set is deliberately different from the last. It’s that freedom that makes Church what it is: “A place where you can enjoy and unapologetically be yourself.” What started as a local party has become something bigger — a separate brand from Jer Dee, with fashion collabs and limited-edition merch drops that push Church beyond nightlife and into a lifestyle.

Pleasure is Jer Dee’s act of laying everything bare. Made during a stretch of absent intimacy — a quiet search for connection and touch — the show takes that absence and turns it inside out: a room full of figures mid-embrace, kissing, holding, reaching, caught in the gesture of being close to someone.

It is a deliberate stripping-away. Where his earlier work moved through dense colour and vibrance, Pleasure reduces the palette to silver, lavender, and teal — a scheme drawn from the mother-of-pearl lacquerware of East Asian and Vietnamese traditions. The linework turns sparse, leaving only the details that matter and trusting the viewer to fill in the rest. The effect is a contradiction held in one breath: intimacy rendered cool, warmth rendered cold. A celebration and a mourning at once.

The show reached beyond the wall with an edition of printed abaca fans — Jer’s digital world pulled into the hand. On opening night, the fans glowed under black light as the crowd danced to sets by Papa Jawnz and Hideki: a room full of people holding his work as they held each other.

Credits: Artwork by Jer Dee. Venue: Futurist (Today x Future), Poblacion, Makati.

To render those visions, Jer rebuilt his visual language from scratch. He’d been drawing more with ballpoint pen and noticed the way heavy pressure leaves ink leaks and bleeds on the page — an analog behaviour he began translating digitally through his strokes. The style drew on East Asian woodblock prints: more refined but explosive colour, a more tasteful approach to gradients, and a sense of worldbuilding that hadn’t existed in his work before.

The show comprised six pieces and Jer’s first cohesive product line — framed works, prints, postcards, and sticker sets, all belonging to one visual universe. It ran for two weeks at Futurist in Poblacion, the venue where Jer’s DJ roots began and where he found his community. Looking back, the lesson was craft: “Tempest taught me how to edit my work better.” What started as homesickness became the foundation of everything that followed.