Ronald Achacoso is a Filipino artist. He had various solo exhibitions such as Evidence Against Interest at Artinformal, Abstraction of Beasts at MO_Space, and Bestiary at Finale Art File. He also participated in group exhibitions like Placebo Paintings at Galleria Duemila, I Miss the 20th Century at Manila Contemporary, and The Mag:net Art Tables at Mag:net Gallery.

Juan Alcazaren (b. 1960) is a sculptor, bricoleur, collagist and object maker who works with a wide variety of materials ranging from construction steel to industrial and household detritus to ubiquitous everyday things like plastic monoblock chairs, school supply materials and melaware plates. Everything is material to him. In the 90’s he learned steel welding from Napoleon Abueva, CCP National Artist for Sculpture and has since always come back to this medium attracted by the way steel only “knows” how it wants to be formed. He always maintains a patina of rust on his steel pieces to show earthly life’s steady march towards death.

He tries to coax profundity out the ephemeral and overlooked in the world of the permanent and covetable. Alcazaren’s faith informed sensibilities make him see humble material as a metaphor for our own material nature, being creatures created by the Uncreated one. Juan Alcazaren has a bachelor’s degree in Landscape Architecture and studied sculpture the University of the Philippines where he also was a lecturer in 1995 at the College of Fine Arts. He was conferred the CCP Thirteen Artists Award in 2000. He lives and works in Pasig City, Philippines and continues to actively exhibit in major galleries and art fairs in his home country and around the region.

Poklong Anading’s (b. 1975, Manila, Philippines) practice utilizes a wide range of media from drawing, painting, video, installation, photography and object-making. Taking a more process-oriented and conceptual approach, his continuing inquiry takes off from issues on self-reflexivity, both of himself and others, and site-specificity in an ongoing discussion about society, time and territory.

He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in painting from the College of Fine Arts, University of the Philippines (1999). He completed residencies with Big Sky Mind, Manila, Philippines (2003 to 2004), Common Room, Bandung, Indonesia (2008), Bangkok University Gallery, Thailand (2013), Selasar Sunaryo Art Space, Bandung, Indonesia (2013), Philippine Art Residency Program - Alliance Francaise de Manille in Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris, Centre Intermondes, La Rochelle in France (2014) and das weisse haus, Vienna Austria (2018). He had solo exhibitions in Galerie Zimmermann Kratochwill, Graz, Austria (2010, 2012 and 2020), Taro Nasu in Japan and Athr Gallery in Jeddah (2016), 1335MABINI in Manila, Philippines (2013, 2015, 2017, and 2019). He has been included in notable group exhibitions such as: Gwangju Biennial, South Korea (2002 and 2012), No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia, the first exhibition of the Guggenheim UBS Map Global Art Initiative in New York, Hong Kong and Singapore (2013 to 2014), 5th Asian Art Biennial: Artist Making Movement, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan (2015), The Shadow Never Lies, Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, Afterwork, Para Site, Hong Kong, China and in the Architecture Biennale for the 15th International Architecture Exhibition, Philippine Pavilion: Muhon: Traces of an Adolescent City at Palazzo Mora, Venice, Italy (2016), disco nap, ‘We Didn’t Mean To Break It (But It’s Ok, We Can Fix It), Galeria Pedro Cera, Lisbon, Portugal (2019), Far Away But Strangely Familiar’, Danubiana Museum, Bratislava, Slovakia (2019), Normal scheduling will resume shortly, Cultural Center of the Philippines, Manila (2019) and Arts in Common Artjog MMXIX, Jogya Nationa Museum, Jogyakarta, Indonesia (2019),

Anading lives and works in Manila.

Felix Bacolor (b. 1967) finished his BFA in Painting at the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts. His works have been shown at different international galleries through solo and group exhibitions including, the Valentine Willie Fine Art Project Room, the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, La Salle College of the Arts, Osage Gallery, Kwun Tong, Finale Art File, the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Galleria Duemila, and Artinformal.

Argie Bandoy (b. 1973, Manila) currently lives and works in his hometown. He graduated from the University of the East College of Fine Arts, and was a member of the artists collective Surrounded by Water. He has had residencies with Big Sky Mind Artists Projects Foundation (2004–2005), and TARP TAKSU, Kuala Lumpur (2011). He has also joined group shows in the Freies Museum Berlin, the TATE Modern London, at Green Papaya Art Projects, MOP Gallery 1 in Sydney, the National Museum in the Philippines, the Cultural Center of the Philippines; and the Hong Kong Cultural Center. Bandoy has shown at TAKSU Singapore, Now Gallery, NOVA Gallery, Finale Art File, Mag:net Gallery, and more.

Ringo Bunoan (b. 1974) is an artist, writer, researcher, and curator whose work explores material and conceptual histories and issues of visibility and representation. Through common and found objects, installations, site-specific projects, photographs, and videos, she examines and reflects on the transient conditions of contemporary art and everyday life.

Bunoan received her BFA in Art History from the University of the Philippines in 1997 and has exhibited widely in Manila, Asia and the United States. Her works have been featured in several international exhibitions and biennales, including the recent Time of Others at the Singapore Art Museum and Queensland Art Gallery and Sunshower: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia at the Mori Art Museum. She is the recipient of the Thirteen Artist award from the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 2003. 

She taught at the UP College in Arts and worked as the Researcher for the Philippines for Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong. She is the co-founder of Big Sky Mind (1999–2005), King Kong Art Projects Unlimited (2010–present), and artbooks.ph (2014–present). She was the lead curator of Chabet: 50 Years, a series of exhibitions in Manila, Singapore, and Hong Kong, and the inaugural Manila Biennale: Open City in 2018. 

Annie Cabigting (born in 1971) majored in Painting at the University of the Philippines. She has been publicly exhibiting her works since 2001. Her first solo exhibition, “100 pieces” (2005), was shown in Finale Art File’s space in SM Megamall, Mandaluyong. She is a recipient of the Ateneo Art Awards and her work was included in the Prague Biennale in Czechoslovakia. Her works have been exhibited in galleries and art fairs in Metro Manila, Antipolo, Singapore, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Tokyo, Berlin, Basel, Madrid, Beirut, and Milan.

Her work, which ranges from painting to installation, is known for questioning what constitutes art: the various aspects of producing, looking and privileging visual images throughout history. Her subject matter involves people viewing art. They highlight the importance of the viewer to an artwork, for they determine whether the object is an artwork. She paints these paintings in a photorealist style.

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Bea Camacho (b. 1983, Manila, Philippines) is a visual artist who works in installation, performance, and video. She received her B.A. in Visual and Environmental Studies from Harvard University, where she was awarded the Albert Alcalay Prize for Outstanding work in Studio Art and the David McCord Prize for Achievement in the Arts. 

She is a recipient of the Thirteen Artists Award from the Cultural Center of the Philippines. She was also selected as an exhibiting artist for the 2006 Asian Contemporary Art Week in New York City and for the 2009 International Women Artists Biennale in Incheon, Korea. Recently, her exhibition at MO_Space, Memento Obliviscere, was shortlisted for the Ateneo Art Awards 2018.

Her work has been exhibited in galleries internationally, including the Japan Society (New York), Osage Gallery (Hong Kong and Singapore), Ikkan Art Gallery (Singapore), Valentine Willie Fine Arts (Kuala Lumpur and Manila), Silverlens (Manila), Finale Gallery (Manila), MO_Space (Manila), and Green Papaya Art Projects (Manila). She has also shown her work in institutions including the Cultural Center of the Philippines, National Museum of the Philippines, Metropolitan Museum of Manila, Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in Manila, the Musee d'Art Moderne in St. Etienne, Kyoto Art Center, Hangaram Museum, EuGon Museum of Photography, Triennale di Milano Design Museum, Queens Museum of Art, Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston and the Tate Modern.

Mariano Ching (b. 1971) graduated from the Fine Arts Program of University of the Philippines (UP) and studied at the Kyoto Arts University, Japan as a Research Student, Major in Printmaking. He has shown in both solo and group exhibitions at various galleries and institutions worldwide, such as the Singapore Art Museum, Valentine Willie Fine Art in Kuala Lumpur, Art Taipei, the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Owen James Gallery in Brooklyn, New York, the Voice Gallery, Kyoto, Silverlens Manila and Singapore, as well as Finale Art File, among others.

Lena Cobangbang (b. 1976, Philippines) studied Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines in Diliman QC. Her work is broad-ranging, moving across video, installation, and found objects to embroidery, cookery, performance and photography. Integral to her art practice is doing collaborations with other artists, such as with Yasmin Sison under the created fictional identity as Alice and Lucinda; and with Mike Crisostomo as The Weather Bureau.

Apart from making art, she writes and works as an independent curator. A part of the seminal artist collective Surrounded By Water, her art practice extends to doing art administration and exhibit organizing, having been a fellow at the 2008 HAO Summit for emerging artists, curator and art managers in Asia in Singapore in 2008, and having undergone an artist/curator research residency exchange between Green Papaya Art Projects and Pekarna-Magdalenske Mreže in Maribor, Slovenia in 2010. She was also part of the touring exhibit, Bastards of Misrepresentation, curated by Manuel Ocampo which has been held in Berlin, Hamburg, Bangkok and New York and the Manila Vice show in Sète, France.

In 2005, she was nominated for the 3rd Ateneo Art Awards. She received the Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists Award in 2006, and was one of the participating artists in the 2008 Singapore Biennale. She did curatorial projects for galleries Pablo, Post Gallery, Galerie Anna, Galerie Roberto, Art Anton, and Secret Fresh in Manila, Philippines. She was part of a residency program hosted by Langgeng Art Foundation in Jogjakarta in 2016.

Painter and sculptor Louie Cordero began an active exhibiting career while pursuing his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines. After graduating in 2001, he became a core member of the painting collective Surrounded by Water and artist-in-residence with the artist-run initiative Big Sky Mind. His work explored imagery and narratives at the nexus of Philippine Catholicism, politics, mass culture, mining the collective consciousness of the Pinoy everyman with a humorous edge. He won the Grand Prize (Painting), 8th Annual Freeman Foundation Vermont Studio Centre in 2002-3. In 2005, he co-founded Future Prospects alternative art space. He is the creator of Nardong Tae, the underground comics of cult status in the Philippines.

Fascinated with kitschy outsider aesthetics and colonial-era leftovers, acrylic has become Cordero's medium of choice in painting since 2005 as he turned towards the super-flat aesthetics of spray-painted Philippine jeepneys and other waning commercial art forms. He received the Cultural Centre of the Philippines 13 Artists Awards in 2006 and earlier. Solo exhibitions overseas include DELUBYO (Giant Robot, Los Angeles, 2008), Actuality/Virtuality (3 Sogoku Warehouse, Fukuoka, 2003), Soft Death (Osage, Hong Kong and Singapore, 2009) and Sacred Bones (Jonathan Levine Gallery, New York, 2010). The recent years display an intensity in the bricolage-method of image construction that takes us through a thrill ride through unbridled imaginations and rerouted libidos, coupled with awkward rendering and visionary courage. His work has been included in World of Painting, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Australia, 2008; Coffee, Cigarettes and Pad Thai, Eslite Gallery, Taipei, 2008; Singapore Biennale 2011; the 14th Jakarta Biennale, 2011; and PANORAMA, Singapore Art Museum, 2012.

Cordero’s puzzling, imploring, and visually striking juxtapositions are often punctuated by blood and gore, as if to imply the history of violence and bloodshed that his nation and people have sustained. Cordero’s artwork makes references to his native Philippines, a nation rich with diversity—the result of multiple changes in political regime and subjugation throughout its history. With a complex mixture of eastern and western influences, the cultural fabric of The Republic of The Philippines is a unique combination of ethnic heritage and traditions, composed of indigenous folklore, Asian customs and Spanish legacy reflective in the names and religion.

Figures from Filipino mythology and its strong oral tradition are referenced through the artist’s gruesome monsters and zombies, while another source of inspiration derived from his nationality involves the Jeepney (U.S. military vehicles abandoned after WWII, and converted by locals to use as public transportation). Each Jeepney, unique and elaborately decorated in vibrant colors, features an ornate mash-up of pop and religious iconography. By combining these elements, varied and obscure (to Westerners), with imagery appropriated from Cordero’s assorted interests including kitsch, Indian advertising, cult American b-movies, and pulp horror, the contrasting influences reflect the complex diversity of the artist’s heritage itself.

Bembol dela Cruz (b. 1976) has been publicly exhibiting his photo realistic paintings since 2000, increasingly engaging the concept of tattoos and other objects as surface, skin and sign. He studied Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines Diliman from 1998 to 2002.

His first solo exhibition, The History of Things, was shown in 2006 and has been followed by successive one-man shows ever since like Handmade Violence (Manila) at Finale Art File and Markings 1:16 at Richard Koh Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He also had various group exhibitions such as Lost In The Crowd: Contemporary Figuration at Manila Contemporary, Tones of Home at Blanc Gallery, and I love Painting and Painting loves me at Finale Art File.

In 2011, Dela Cruz bagged one of the top three slots at the 8th Ateneo Art Awards and received an artist residency and exhibition grant at the Liverpool Hope University and the Cornerstone Gallery in the United Kingdom. The following year, he received two other residency grants from the Berkshire Residency Exchange in West Massachusetts and the Art OMI International Artists Residency in Ghent, New York.

Pardo de Leon’s paintings are reminiscent of the style of the old European Masters, and she is known for her distinctive style of painting marked by a ‘sense of line, gesture, and touch.’ Belonging to a generation of painters whose works are mainly based on found photographic imagery, de Leon approaches painting both intuitively and methodically. Working adeptly in both abstraction and figuration, she confronts conventions in painting through the juxtaposition of images, the layering of different forms and motifs, or by zooming in on particular aspects and details of the subject.

Pardo de Leon graduated with a degree in Painting from the UP College of Fine Arts in 1987. She was a recipient of the CCP Thirteen Artists Award in 1988. She also received a studio residency grant from the Italian-Swedish Cultural Foundation in Venice, Italy in 1999, which was awarded the best show of the year by the state council. De Leon has had numerous solo and group exhibitions at various galleries and museums including the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Finale Art File, MO_Space, Blanc Gallery, Manila Contemporary, Valentine Willie Fine Art, and the Institute of Contemporary Art – La Salle College of the Arts. She currently lives and works in Baguio City.

Ranelle Dial (b. 1977) is a visual artist and freelance art instructor. Her work continually transitions between various materials, processes and conceptual concerns, all linked by the production of multiple or serial works.

Dial graduated from the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts, majoring in Visual Communication in 2003. She started joining group exhibitions in 2005 and held her first solo exhibition, titled Cube Uncubed, a year after at Mag:net Gallery. Her 6th solo exhibition, titled Redefined Signals, was held at Finale Art File in 2009.

She continues to hold annual or bi-annual solo exhibits to date and has completed artist residencies at the Project Space Pilipinas in Manila (2011) and Liverpool Hope University in the United Kingdom (2012).

Nona Garcia (b. 1978) received a BFA in Painting at the University of the Philippines (UP). Her work has been shown and collected extensively throughout the region. She was the recipient of the Grand Prize for the Philip Morris Group of Companies ASEAN Art Award (2000), the Cultural Center of the Philippines 13 Artists Award (2003), and the residency program at Cross Currents, Bangkok (2004). Her work has been featured in numerous publications such as Post-Tsunami Art published by Damiani, Without Walls: A tour of Philippine Paintings at the Turn of the Millenium, and Phaidon’s Painting Today.

Garcia has shown at Finale Art File, West Gallery, the Prague Biennale (2009), G23 in Bangkok, the Primo Marella Milano, Valentine Willie Fine Art Singapore, Osage Gallery Singapore, the Bencab Museum in Baguio City, ARNDT Berlin, and Blanc Gallery, to name a few.

Nilo Ilarde (b. 1960) is a conceptual artist and curator whose works navigate the intersections between image and word, drawing and writing, and surface and painting. Using both found and constructed objects, he assembles amalgams of image and text that  comment on both the formal and conceptual conditions of art and language. He strips and mines his subjects to reveal their history and materiality and in the process creates forms of both declaration and negation. 

Ilarde studied Painting at the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts. Since the 80s, he has been exhibiting his works and curating exhibitions at various galleries and alternative spaces in Manila, including the Cultural Center of the Philippines, The Pinaglabanan Galleries, Finale Art File, West Gallery, Mag;net, MO_Space, Art Informal, and Underground. His works have also been featured in several international exhibitions and art fairs including solo presentations at Art Basel Hong Kong and Art Stage Singapore, both in 2015 and at Art Fair Philippines in 2018.  He is also the co-founder of King Kong Art Projects Unlimited and was one of the lead curators of ‘Chabet: 50 Years’ in various venues in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Manila from 2011–2012.

Geraldine Javier (b. 1970, Philippines) lives and work in the Philippines. Javier has held many solo and group exhibitions in her home country since 1995, and since 2004, she has been exhibiting her works internationally. She is recognized as one of the most celebrated Southeast Asian artists both in the academic and art fields. Her works revolve around the universal world of spirituality rather than concentrating on a specific religion. Javier’s interests root from the artist’s personal history of having lived her whole life struggling with the catholic culture in the Philippines, and are manifested through the unique region-specificity of Southeast Asia, in which the influx of Western culture has been naturalized. In other words, Javier goes beyond the logic behind religion, to pursue fundamental values that can be collectively embraced.

Javier was one of the artists who received the Thirteen Artists Award of Cultural Center of the Philippines in 2003.

Robert Langenegger (b. 1983, St. Gallen, Switzerland) lives and works in Manila, Philippines. His art has deliberately gone against moral conformity and academic technique, using images as carnivalesque allegory.

Taking up Fine Arts at UP Diliman and Kalayaan College, Langenegger first exhibited his paintings at the artist-run space Big Sky Mind in 2003. By 2008, he was cited as one of the finalists for the Sovereign Art Prize. During that same year his one-man show Irish Bull of the Mother and Child, held at Finale Art File in 2007, was shortlisted for the Ateneo Art Awards. Soon after, his show at MO_Space, ONLY DOG CAN JUDGE ME, was also shortlisted for the Ateneo Art Awards in 2018. His works have been shown in various art galleries in Manila, Malaysia, Australia, Austria, Germany and New York. Through the years, he had various solo exhibitions in both local and international galleries such as Finale Art File in the Philippines and Galerie Zimmermann Kratochwill in Graz, Austria. He participated in group exhibitions as well that showed at Artesan Gallery (Singapore) and Goliath Visual Space in Brooklyn (New York), to name some.

Keiye Miranda (b. 1976) received her BA in Fine Arts, major in Studio Arts from UP in 1998. She has facilitated a handful of projects by the Neo-Angono Artists Collective since 2007 and has had over 6 solo exhibitions since 1996. Her works have also been featured in group shows locally and abroad, such as the CCP, the Vargas Museum, Goliath Visual Space in Brooklyn and Richard Koh Fine Art Gallery in Kuala Lumpur. She lives and works in Angono, Rizal.

It is with timelessness that Elaine Roberto-Navas (b. 1964) works her brush and palette over canvas. With subjects ranging from flowers to furniture, from the sky to water, she paints with oil in thick strokes; the object appears swathed in movement. Still life or landscape as they may be considered, they move with each glance, and if you stare, the motion starts to permeate outside the four corners of her paintings. What Roberto-Navas captures in her work is not merely an object in nature, but its spirit in movement, and together with her technique, artistry, and will, her paintings exist in a timelessness that might outlive us all, yet carry our humanity onwards.

Elaine Roberto-Navas graduated with BA in Psychology from Ateneo de Manila University (1985), and a Fine Arts degree, Major in Painting from the University of the Philippines (1991). Roberto-Navas has received various awards including the Jurors’ Choice Awards from the Art Association of the Philippines (1994, 1995), the Honorable Mention from the Philip Morris Philippine Art Awards (1995), and the Honorable Mention from the Philip Morris Singapore Art Awards (2002). She has shown at the Ayala Museum, Silverlens Gallery, Finale Art File, MO_Space, Art Informal, West Gallery, UP Vargas Museum, the Cultural Center of the Philippines, and Valentine Willie Fine Art in Singapore to name a few.

Jonathan Olazo (b. 1969, Manila) graduated from the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Fine Arts, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting, where he now teaches. He is a recipient of the Grand Prize from the Philippine Association of Printmakers Open Graphic Arts Competition and Exhibition (1987), the Thirteen Artists Awards by the Cultural Center of the Philippines (1994), the Voted Artist of the Year with Roy Halili for Art Manila Newspaper Art Awards (2003), and an artist residency in Fukuoka, Japan by an independent curator, Mizuki Endo (2004). Olazo has had solo and group exhibitions both in local and international spaces, including the Tetra Art Space, Valentine Willie Fine Art in Kuala Lumpur, Manila Contemporary, Now Gallery, the Vargas Museum at UP, the Drawing Room, and Paseo Gallery.

Jayson Oliveria (b. 1973) graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting at the University of the Philippines. He is a recipient of the Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artist Award (2006), and Ateneo Art Award (2004), and artist residencies at Big Sky Mind Artists Projects Foundation in Cubao (2003–2004) and at Tetra Art Space in Fukuoka, Japan (2005). Oliveria has shown widely in both local and international galleries, including Surrounded by Water, The Drawing Room, Finale Art File, Ark Galerie in Jakarta, the Tate Turbine Hall in London, Galerie Zimmermann Kratochwill in Austria, Artinformal, and Freies Museum Berlin, and VOLTA12 in Markthalle, Basel.

Mawen Ong (b. 1964) is an artist and gallery director in Manila. She is a member of King Kong Art Projects Unlimited, an initiative dedicated to archiving and preserving the works of Roberto Chabet. She obtained 2 business degrees at St. Scholastica’s College and eventually studied Painting at the University of the Philippines - College of Fine Arts. She has been exhibiting since 2005 in both solo and group exhibitions at Future Prospects, Green Papaya Art Projects, West Gallery, Osage Gallery Hong Kong, the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Blanc Gallery, and Silverlens Manila, among others.

Bernardo Pacquing (b. 1967, Tarlac) currently lives in Parañaque City. He studied Editorial Design from the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts. In 1999, he won the Grand Prize from the Art Association of the Philippines for an Open Art Competition (Painting Non-Representational), and was a recipient of the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Thirteen Artists Award in 2000. In the same year, he was also given the Freeman Fellowship Grant at Vermont Studio Center in Vermont. Pacquing has shown in both solo and group exhibitions at various local and international venues such as Manila Contemporary, La Salle College of the Arts in Singapore, Osage Gallery Hong Kong, TAKSU Singapore, and Silverlens Gallery.

Jet Pascua (b. 1969) is born in Manila, The Philippines. He studied painting at the Fine Arts Department of the University of the Philippines, and later studied Visual Arts at the Royal Academy of the Arts in Oslo, and finished his Master in Fine Arts degree at the National Academy of Fine Arts in Bergen. 

He works in performance and film, as well as objects and drawing, and his work often reflects upon his own experiences as an immigrant coming from the Philippines to Norway. While often personal, his art also commonly involves historical and political events. 

Pascua is currently a fellow at the Norwegian Artistic Research Program, Tromsø Academy for Contemporary Art. He is the founder and programme director of Small Projects, an artist-run space he started in Manila and currently located in Tromsø. Jet lives in Tromsø, Norway and works in Tromsø and Manila.

Gary-Ross Pastrana (b. 1977, Manila) received his Bachelor’s Degree in Painting from the University of the Philippines where he was a recipient of the Dominador Castañeda Award for Best Thesis. He was granted residency programs in Japan and Bangkok. Pastrana was awarded residencies in Japan and Bangkok, and received the Thirteen Artists Award from the Cultural Center of the Philippines (2006). He is one of the co-founders of Future Prospects Art Space (2005–2007), and has exhibited his work and curated shows both in his hometown and abroad, at galleries like Silverlens Singapore, Finale Art File, the Singapore Art Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of the Philippines, the Vargas Museum at the University of the Philippines, and has participated in Art Basel Hong Kong (2013), the New Museum Triennale in New York, USA (2012), the Aichi Triennale in Japan (2010) and the Busan Biennale in Korea (2008). Pastrana has also authored publications such as New Museum Triennial: The Ungovernables (USA) and Tomorrow, Today: Contemporary Art from the Singapore Art Museum 2009–2011, both published in 2012.

Juni Salvador (b. 1962) is a Filipino artist based in Sydney, Australia. He has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Advertising from the Philippine Women’s University College of Fine Arts. He taught at Maria Montessori Children’s School and at International School-Manila. He has shown in both solo and group exhibitions at various galleries including the Institute of Contemporary Art, La Salle Singapore, Manila Contemporary, SLOT space in Sydney, Mag:net Gallery, the Yuchengco Museum, Finale Art File, and West Gallery.

Yasmin Sison (b. 1972) graduated from the University of the Philippines, with a Bachelor’s Degree in Humanities and then in the Fine Arts, Major in Painting. She was a member of the collective Surrounded by Water, and is the recipient of the Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists Award (2006). She was also shortlisted for the Ateneo Art Awards (2007).  

Sison has shown in both solo and group exhibitions locally and abroad since 1996, in spaces such as West Gallery, Valentine Willie Fine Arts in Malaysia, Artesan Gallery in Singapore, Artinformal, Manila Contemporary, Silverlens Gallery, Blanc Gallery, and the Owen James Gallery in New York, to name a few. She has participated in international group exhibitions in Belgium (2000), Singapore (2002), and Italy (2009). 

Soler Santos (b. 1960) attended the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Fine Arts from 1978-82. He is a painter and photographer. Santos founded West Gallery with his wife and fellow artist, Mona Santos, in 1989.

Santos has represented the Philippines in international events such as the 1st ASEAN Youth Painting and Workshop in Thailand (1983), the 2nd Asian Art Show in Japan (1985), and the 11th International Biennial Print and Drawing Exhibition at National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (2004). He is the recipient of the First Prize from the ASEAN Painting Competition (1983) and the Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists Award (1992).

Santos has shown in both solo and group exhibitions at spaces including the Luz Gallery, Blanc Gallery, Silverlens Galleries, Finale Art File, MO_Space, Artinformal, the Hong Kong Arts Centre, the ICA La Salle College of the Arts, the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, and the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

Gerardo Tan (b. 1960) works across various media from painting, collage, artist books to video, found objects, and installation to deal with conceptual plays and issues of representation. He recreates images culled from the world of art and mass media in order to subvert hierarchies and give way to new itinerant meanings.

Tan took his BFA at the University of the Philippines and his MFA at the State University of New York in Buffalo, USA. He has participated in several international exhibitions including Pause (4th Gwangju Biennial, 2002), Signs of Life (First Melbourne Biennial, 1999), The 3rd Asian Art Biennial Bangladesh (Osmani Memorial Hall, Dhaka, 1986), and The 2nd Asian Art Show (Fukuoka Art Museum, 1982). His recent solo exhibitions are Points of Departure (Noestudio, 2013 Madrid, Spain), Hablon Redux and Other Transcriptions (Random Parts, Oakland, USA, 2016) and Visualizing Sound (Jorge B. Vargas Museum, Philippines, 2019).

He was conferred the 13 Artists Award by the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 1988. His other distinctions include the Fulbright-Hays Grant at SUNY Buffalo (1990-92), the Barbara Schuller’s Art Associates Award in Buffalo, NY (1992) and the Juror’s Choice at the Art Association of the Philippines Annual Competition in 1997.

Wire Tuazon (b. 1973) is an artist and curator. He graduated from the University of the Philippines Diliman with a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts, Major in Painting. He is the founder of the artist collective Surrounded by Water in the 1990s, and was the President, and now Adviser, for the Neo-Angono Artists Collective. He was a recipient of the Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists Award (2003), the Sangguniang Bayan Award for Visual Arts, and the residency grant of the Ashiya City Museum of Art and History from the Japan Foundation Asia Center (2001). 

Tuazon has participated in international exhibitions in Milan, Beijing, Singapore, and Hong Kong, as well as locally, at events like the Tupada International Visual Performance Festival (2005, 2009), Art Stage Singapore (2015), and at spaces such as the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Silverlens Gallery, Pinto Art Gallery, and Finale Art File, Artesan Gallery + Studio, and Osage Hong Kong, to name a few. 

Cris Villanueva, Jr. (b. 1959) graduated with a Fine Arts degree in Visual Communications from the University of the Philippines Diliman and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the Philippine Christian University. He founded a creative collective named Madruguada, and was part of the well-known local artist collective, Salingpusa. He has received various awards including the Grand Prize (2005), Juror’s Choice (2006), and the Juror’s Choice Award of Merit (2010) of the Philip Morris Philippine Art Awards. He has had solo shows at the Boston Gallery, Mag:net Gallery, NOVA Gallery, Pinto Art Museum, and the Cultural Center of the Philippines, and joined group exhibitions shown at TAKSU Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, and the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, La Salle College of the Arts.

Alvin Villaruel belonged to that generation of young artists who excites and intensifies Philippine contemporary art. He began his career in 1998 after receiving his diploma from the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts. He re-introduced the idea of photo-paintings as well as smudges and blurs in his works. A decade later, he made a mark as a young painter eventually becoming one of the leading artists of his generation. In this interview, Alvin Villaruel talks about his struggles, his early beginnings, his joys and sentiments and the activities that young artist like him go through in the early stage of their careers.

MM Yu (b. 1978) lives and works in Manila, Philippines. Her photographs evoke the ever-changing cultural texture and topology of Manila as seen through its inhabitants, the city’s infrastructure and its waste product as it archives not only the economy but also the ecology of life in the myriad forms it takes in the city. 

These recorded static scenarios show through their thematic variety the artist’s interest in discovering and valuing the fleeting moment present even in its simplest components. The diverse elements in her works not only underscore the inability of photography to account for fractured temporality. Through her ongoing interest in deciphering the enigma of the unseen landscape of ordinary things, they also force us to rethink what our minds already know and rediscover what our eyes have already seen.

The impact lies in how photography is employed to investigate another subject namely that of memory. By consolidating a series of routine snapshots traversing the streets of Manila. The hybrid and density of MM Yu’s subjects remind us of how objects and signs are not necessarily self-contained but take part in larger systems of interaction.

MM Yu received her BFA Painting from the University of the Philippines and completed residencies with Big Sky Mind, Manila (2003), Common Room Bandung Residency Grant and Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, France (2013). She is a recipient of the Cultural Center of the Philippines 13 Artist Award (2009), the Goethe Institute Workshop Grant (2014), and the Ateneo Art Awards (winner in 2007, shortlisted in 2011). She was also a finalist for the Sovereign Asian Art Prize (2010).

Reg Yuson is a sculptor and creative director of Spacespecific. He was a former member of the Committee on Visual Arts, from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (1996–2001), and the Society of Philippine Sculptors (1993–1998). He received the Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artist Award in 2003.

Yuson has made commissioned pieces in public spaces, including the University of the Philippines (UP) Sculpture Garden, Greenbelt 3 in Makati City, the Mind Museum and in Bonifacio High Street, Taguig City, Resorts World Genting Club, and the Manila Hotel. He has exhibited in both solo and group shows at galleries and institutions such as the UP Vargas Museum, West Gallery, Pinto Art Gallery, Finale Art File, Mag:net Gallery, ART FORUM Gallery Singapore, Manila Contemporary, Galleria Duemila, and the Cultural Centre of the Philippines, among others.

Roberto Chabet (1937–2013) was a pioneering Filipino conceptual artist, curator, and teacher. Known for his experimental works, ranging from paintings, drawings, collages, sculptures, and installations made out of mostly ordinary and found material, Chabet insists on a more inclusive approach to art. In his works, abstraction and the everyday collide, creating spaces for new meanings.

Chabet was the founding Museum Director of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) where he initiated the Thirteen Artists Awards in 1970 to support young artists whose works show “recentness and a turning away from the past.” After his brief tenure at the CCP, he led the alternative artist group Shop 6, and taught for over thirty years at the University of the Philippines, College of Fine Arts and at key artist-run spaces in Manila. Since the 70s until his death in 2013, he supported and curated exhibitions of young Filipino artists.

Chabet is the recipient of the JD Rockefeller III Fund Grant (1967–1968), the Republic Cultural Heritage Award (1972), the Araw ng Maynila Award for the Visual Arts (1972), and the CCP Centennial Award of Honours for the Arts (1998). He was posthumously awarded the Gawad CCP Para Sa Sining in 2015.

Pow Martinez (b. 1983, Manila, Philippines; lives and works in Manila) is a Filipino artist known for his expressionistic style of painting, blending bold colors with demonic, mutant-like characters to create compelling canvases. Often resembling a beautiful nightmare, Martinez combines the mundanities of everyday life with elements of pop culture, resulting in darkly humorous works depicting society’s overconsumption.

Martinez is a recipient of the 2010 Ateneo Art Award for his exhibition 1 Billion Years at West Gallery, Philippines. He exhibits internationally and has worked with different media, from painting to sound.

His recent exhibitions include State of Flux (2023) at Silverlens New York; City Prince/sses (2019) at Palais de Tokyo in Paris; Art Jakarta 2019 with Silverlens and ROH Projects; 50 Years in Hollywood (2019) at Pinto Art Museum in New York; Art Basel Hong Kong 2019 with Silverlens; WXXX (2019), West Gallery, Manila. Martinez has also held a number of solo shows in major galleries in Manila, the most recent of which is Clunker (2022) at Silverlens Manila. Early in 2022,Martinez had his first solo exhibition in Madrid entitled Underground SpiritualUnit at Galeria Yusto/ Giner. In 2018, he had a solo exhibition in Indonesia. Titled Aesthetic Police, the exhibition is an outcome of his month-long residency program at OPQRStudio in Bandung.