(Image Courtesy: Instagram/ cjdesilva)
TRIGGER WARNING: This article contains references to an individual’s death.
CJ de Silva-Ong, a Filipino painter, creative director, and artist, passed suddenly on June 18 at 10:45 a.m. following two strokes. De Silva formerly known as the Promil Gifted Child was just 36.
CJ de Silva’s husband announces her passing in a Facebook post
De Silva’s husband, Wincy Ong, a writer shared the news of her passing on his Facebook page. He has been providing updates on her health since she had an aneurysm on June 5. He wrote, “She fought to the very end. She was a loving wife to me, a loving cat-mom to our cats Andres and Max, and a loving daughter to her parents and uncle.”
According to her husband, she had a brain aneurysm and had been in the intensive care unit ever since. On the day she got the attack, she also had an unsuccessful coiling surgery, and a few days later, another surgery was performed.
Who was CJ de Silva?
CJ, who gained fame as one of the kids from the Promil ads of the 1990s, established herself as a visual artist by participating in solo and group shows at places like The Collective, Whitespace Gallery, and The Ayala Museum. She co-hosted the podcast Telebabad Tapes with Wincy and was the executive creative director at TBWA SMP.
Among her noteworthy work is the Palanca Award-winning Ang Ikaklit Sa Aming Hardin by Bernadette Neri, Eugene Evasco’s Gumagapang, Lumulukso, Lumilipad: Bugtong Sa Mga Kulisap, the late Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago’s Stupid Is Forever, and the album cover for Itchyworm’s After All This Time.
She has worked on ads for Nissan’s The Leaf Orchestra, Dolfenal’s Love TVC, and Manikako’s A Toy Love Story That Will Make You Cry which was the first Webby Award winner in Japan.
