Catalina Africa (b. 1988) graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting from the University of the Philippines. She has participated in several residency programs including those by 1335MABINI, AiRPManila, the Skowhagen School of Painting and Sculpture in the U.S. in 2014, and at Baler Artist Village in Aurora. She is also a mentor for the Artery Mentorship Program in 2014 by Artery Art Space. In 2015, she was shortlisted for the Ateneo Art Awards for her solo exhibition, Reverse Boomerangs and Other Exercises for Pleasure (Warm Up/Cool Down) at 1335MABINI. Africa has shown at various galleries like West Gallery, Silverlens, 1335Mabini, Finale Art File, and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts Gallery.

Gus Albor (b. 1948) is a painter and sculptor known for his minimalist abstraction works. He graduated from the University of the East School of Music and Fine Arts. After 5 years, he earned a one-year British Council Study grant to the West Surrey College of Art in England.

Gus Albor’s art is a gestural brushwork and existential angst of an abstract minimalist. It is a deliberate lack of expressive content. The artist focusing on the informal elements of art making. First, by expanding his initial monochrome palette of greys, whites and earth. Into the third dimension through the incorporation of stark elements onto the canvas. Giving his art an illusionistic representations of the visual world. Creating the appearance of a three-dimensional space within their picture. Emerging out of the canvas and into the space of the viewer.

The artist redefines the color spectrum to make his works inexpressive, conceptual and non-referential. The minimalist, Albor, allows the audience instinctively give an immediate visual response. For the viewer to experience all the more the pure qualities of colour, form, space and materials. To explore without the distractions of composition, theme, and other elements. Stripped of all thematic or emotional content.

Albor is a practitioner of nonrepresentational painting. Rather artwork alluding to underlying, meanings, emotions, or narratives. Working according to the minimalism principles of line, plane, volume, and point, within space. He explored tension between the arrangement of colors on the flat surface of the canvas. As well as the optical effect of the artwork. His spare abstraction sought to de-mystify art. To reveal its most fundamental character: the medium and materials of his work. Where its reality, and that is was what Gus Albor wanted to portray to delineate space. 

Albor was also a CCP Thirteen Artists Awardee and has participated in major exhibitions and art events in the Philippines, USA, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, and China. Some of these events are: the First Selection of Philippine Art by the Museum of Philippine Art (MOPA), 1981; and 100 years of Philippine Painting Exhibition held at the Pacific Asia Museum, in Pasadena, California, 1984.

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.

Maria Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan (b. 1965, Manila) and Alfredo Juan Aquilizan (b. 1962, Cagayan Valley, the Philippines) have lived and worked in Brisbane Australia since 2006. The artists have worked collaboratively for over a decade and their projects use the processes of collecting and collaborating to express ideas of migration, family, home, and memory. Often working with local communities, the Aquilizans bring together personal items and found objects to compose elaborate, formal installations reflecting individual experiences of dislocation and change. They have also used the materials of migration such as packing boxes, referencing the Philippine tradition of the Balikbayan. They have been selected for large exhibitions internationally, including the Havana Biennale (1997, 2000), the Asia-Pacific Triennial, Brisbane (1999 & 2009), 50th Venice Biennale (Zones of Urgency, 2003), Biennale of Sydney (2006); the Echigo-Tsumari Triennale in Japan (2006), Singapore Biennale (2008), Adelaide Biennial (2008); the Liverpool Biennal in the UK (2010), the 5th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art and the Sharjah Biennale in the United Arab Emirates (2013), among others. They have also exhibited in numerous international institutions, such as the Singapore Art Museum, the Cultural Center of the Philippines, the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (SCAF) in Sydney, Australia, Asian Arts Museum in Fukuoka, Japan, the 21st Century Museum in Kanazawa, Japan, and more.

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.

Yason Banal (b. 1972, Philippines) is an artist whose work moves between photography, video, installation, text and performance, exploring myriad forms and conceptual strategies in order to research and experiment with associations and refractions among seemingly divergent systems. He obtained a BA in Film at the University of the Philippines, an MFA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths-University of London, residencies at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam and AIT in Tokyo, and visiting lectureships at London Metropolitan University and Tokyo National University of Fine Arts. 

Banal’s work-in-progress is inspired by a conceptual astronomy around abstraction and document, ranging from Jose Rizal’s transglobal coordination and Isabelo Delos Reyes’ experimental archive amidst 19th century politics and anti-imperialist imagination, to possible contemporary coordinates in supernatural reality TV, lo-fi internet culture, geomarket forces and neo-migrant formalism. His work attempts to explore hidden meanings and associations through action led interventions. His works often place viewers and participants in vulnerable situations in order to trigger psychological experiences or memories. One such project, The Legend of the Sleepwalking Tricks, involved a group of young men who listened to death metal music while sipping milk laced with sleeping pills. Banal treads a thin line between illusion and reality, and a more serious threshold between passive consumption of art and violation of ethical taboos.

His works have been shown at the Tate, Frieze Art Fair, IFA Berlin, Oslo Kunsthall, Singapore Biennale, Shanghai Biennale, Queens Museum of Art and Cultural Center of the Philippines. Upcoming projects include Bangkok Art and Culture Center (Bangkok), Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (Manila), Garage Museum of Contemporary Art (Moscow) and Queensland Museum of Art (Brisbane).

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.

Nice Buenaventura (b. 1984) is a visual artist and educator from Manila. Her methods revolve around the offloading of tensions, often between ethics and aesthetics, through drawing, painting, new media and (lay-)ethnography. This extends to her project called Tropikalye, an artist-authored resource on contemporary visual culture in tropical and postcolonial Philippines.

Nice holds postgraduate degrees in media and arts technology from Queen Mary, University of London and Ateneo de Manila University. She has presented work and participated in art-adjacent projects in Bacolod, Bangkok, London, Manila, Melbourne and Zurich. In 2021, she received the CCP Thirteen Artists Award and the Ateneo Art Awards - Fernando Zóbel Prize for Visual Art.

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. 

Zean Cabangis (b. 1985) graduated from UP CFA with a Bachelor of Fine Arts majoring in Painting in 2007. He was shortlisted for Ateneo Art Awards in 2012 and 2013. Cabangis lives and works in Manila.

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.

Enzo Camacho (b. 1985, Philippines) received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University and his Master’s degree in Fine Arts at the Hochschule fur bildende Kunste (HFBK) in Hamburg, Germany. He is known for collaborating with Amy Lien. In 2013, they received an Achievement Grand Award from the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service)/Karl H. Ditze Stiftung HFBK, Germany. Recently in 2015, they participated in a six-month residency as artists/curators at Gluck 50 in Milan, Italy. They were also granted an artist-in-residence program from NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore in November 2015.

His individual and collaborative work with Amy Lien has been included in group exhibitions at Bortolami Gallery (New York), Galerie Crone (Berlin), Mathew (Berlin), Green Papaya Art Projects (Quezon City, Philippines), Light and Space Contemporary (Quezon City, Philippines), LOST Projects (Marikina, Philippines) and the Jorge B. Vargas Museum (Quezon City, Philippines), among others. In 2011, they had solo exhibitions at 57 Canal (New York) and Republikha Art Gallery (Quezon City, Philippines), as well as a performance at the Museum of Modern Art (New York). In 2014, they had a collaborative show at 47 Canal, New York for the second time entitled Leak Light Time Heat. They also had a collaborative performance with Christian Najouks in the same year which was shown both in the Philippines and in Germany. It was entitled G-SPVK SPEAKS BITCHES ON ICE. Enzo Camacho and Amy Lien had recent collaborative exhibitions at Physics Room, New Zealand entitled Urban Aspiration and Not with nothing but. With nothing. held at Project Native Informant in London, UK. Both exhibitions were shown in 2015.

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.

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.

Born in 1975 in Metro Manila, Mike Crisostomo is a visual artist who was admitted to the University of the Philippines Diliman’s Fine Arts program in 1998.

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He had his solo exhibition entitled Picture Not So Perfect at Blanc Gallery, Quezon City and he joined various group exhibitions at Finale Art File, MO_Space, National Museum, and at the Goliath Visual Space in Brooklyn, New York.

Kiri Lluch Dalena (b. 1975) is a Filipino filmmaker and visual artist. Dalena graduated from the University of the Philippines (UP) Los Baños with a Bachelors in Human Ecology. She then pursued further studies in 16mm documentary film making at the Mowelfund Film Institute. She is a recipient of the Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists Award (2012) and the Ateneo Art Awards (2009). Dalena’s films have been screened in various international film festivals such as the Tromsø International Film Festival (2015), Visions du Reel (2014), Naqsh Short Film Festival (2014), and in the Sharjah Biennale 11 Film Program (2013). She has represented the Philippines in different international art events such as the Singapore Biennale (2013), the Yokohama Triennale (2014), the Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale (2014), the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in Brisbane, Australia (2015), and Busan Biennale (2016). Dalena’s works are currently in the permanent collections of the Singapore Art Museum, Queensland Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern Art, and the Ateneo Art Gallery. She has various solo and group exhibitions in local and international galleries, such as Mag:net, Vargas Museum at UP, Finale Art File, 1335Mabini, Galerie Zimmermann Kratochwill in Graz, Austria, Ateneo Art Gallery, Württembergischer Kunstverein in Stuttgart, Now Gallery, Green Papaya Art Projects, Manila Contemporary, the Lopez Memorial Museum, and the Singapore Art Museum.

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.

Lara de los Reyes (b. 1980) currently lives and works in the Philippines. She graduated from the University of the Philippines with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting, and from Assumption College with a Bachelor of Science in Commerce and Entrepreneurship. De los Reyes has participated in solo and group exhibitions at various galleries including Richard Koh Fine Arts, Malaysia, Green Papaya Art Projects, the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Mag:net Gallery, and Silverlens Gallery.

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).

Jed Escueta graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of the Philippines. He was part of the Green Papaya Art Projects Residency Program Wednesdays Open Platform funded by Arts Network Asia Singapore in 2009. Escueta has participated in both solo and group exhibitions at Silverlens Gallery, Light and Space Contemporary, Osage Gallery in Hong Kong, Green Papaya Art Projects, Post Gallery, Photo Bangkok, Vinyl on Vinyl, and Art Dubai.

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Marc Gaba lives and works in Manila, Philippines. He studied Creative Writing and graduated as Magna cum laude and Valedictorian at University of the Philippines - Diliman, and took up MFA with the same course in University of Iowa, USA.

Gaba’s art examines junctures of passages where meaning is configured as a site of response. While concentrated on oil painting, particularly "apertural" paintings, his practice encompasses installation, video, books and photography. His subjects have been as broad ranging, exploring public space, the Internet, Catholicism, antiterrorism, language, and abstraction itself.

Marc Gaba had numerous solo exhibitions such as Interiors at Art Informal, The Scandalous Happiness of Sitting Down at Krem Contemporary Art, and The Knowledge of Knowledge at Art Cabinet Philippines. He also received numerous awards such as being a Finalist on the Dorset Prize at Tupelo Press, USA, got the 2nd place on the Don Carlos Palanca Literary Award, and had the Venue Grant from the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

David Griggs (b. 1975, Sydney) currently lives and works in Manila, Philippines. Griggs is an interdisciplinary artist whose work straddles between painting, photography, video, and installation. As part of his artistic approach, he interacts with various communities both in the Philippines and Australia while exploring socio-political themes through the use of humor and aesthetic irony. His themes have tackled Halloween festivals and prison life in Manila, outlaw culture in Australia, reactions on the policies of anti-terrorism, and the war imaginary as portrayed on film. 

Griggs has exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions throughout Australia, Asia, Europe and America. He has conducted research for projects during residencies in Barcelona, Manila, Thailand and Burma. His work has been presented in numerous exhibitions including Frat of the Obese, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney (2011) Fluid Zones Biennale Jakarta XIII (2009), Blood on the Streets, Artspace, Sydney (2007), The Independence Project, Galerie Petronas, Kuala Lumpur (2007), Exchanging Culture for Flesh, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2006), Primavera, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2006), Post Criminal, Kaliman Gallery, Sydney (2010). David Griggs is represented by Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney, Kalimanrawlins Gallery, Melbourne, Galerie Zimmermann Kratochwill, Graz and LIGHTBOMBS Contemporary, Hong Kong.

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.

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.

Romeo Lee is an artist and musician known as “the king of punk” and the “ukay-ukay king,” having gained a reputation since his student days in the University of the Philippines in the 1980s. An artist for over three decades, he has shown in both solo and group exhibitions in various spaces locally and internationally, including West Gallery, Manila Contemporary, Mag:net Gallery, NOVA Gallery, Vinyl on Vinyl, Finale Art File, Crucible Gallery, the Cultural Center of the Philippines, the Fries Museum in Berlin, and the Musee International des Arts Modestes in Sete, France.

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.

Paul Mondok (b. 1978) graduated with a Bachelor degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Philippines-Diliman. He has been exhibiting since 1998 in alternative art spaces such as in Big Sky Mind, Future Prospects, and Green Papaya Art Projects, and other exhibition spaces that ponder contemporary art practice and formats. He has also participated in both solo and group shows at various galleries and institutions, such as the Cultural Center of the Philippines, the National Museum, Osage Gallery Hong Kong, the Philippine Center in New York, among others. He was the Philippine representative for the Jakarta Biennale (2013) and 98B COLLABoratory’s representative to the Koganecho Bazaar (2014) in Japan.

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Kaloy Olavides graduated from the University of the Philippines (UP) with a Bachelor degree of Fine Arts. Aside from his visual arts practice, he has been doing production design for films, music videos, and audio visual presentations. He is the guitar and vocals for the bands Pastilan Dong! and Grows, and is also a member of the experimental sound collective, Elemento. Since 2012, Olavides has been teaching at De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde. He is a recipient of the Philippine Art Awards Juror’s Choice Award of Merit (2013), and the Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists Award (2012). He has had solo exhibitions at several galleries including Green Papaya Art Projects, West Gallery, 856 G Gallery, and Light and Space Contemporary. He has also shown in group exhibitions at Osage Gallery Hong Kong, Osage Gallery Singapore, the Luggage Store Gallery in San Francisco, California, the Central Trak Gallery in Texas, Silverlens Gallery and Post 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.

Christina Quisumbing Ramilo (b. 1961) examines and reimagines objects and their contexts through comprehension of material and site specificity. Her artistic practice involves an interest in and respect for the life and history of objects. With minimal intervention on their surfaces, she arranges them or reconfigures their parts, presenting other perspectives to their forms and functions. Often using unconventional materials (construction discards, architectural fragments, casts, recycled paper), and utilizing objects themselves as material (mirrors, bottles, old frames, clothing), most of which have been collected for years, she constructs the works in parts over long periods of time, never completely finished. Conferred with titles that employ wit and humor, they ultimately express her personal poetries.

Ramilo lives and works in the Philippines as a full-time artist and curator.

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.

Frederick Almonte Sausa (b. 1969, Angono, Rizal) is a self-taught artist who primarily works on leave out shapes (bare canvases); he often experimented on reflective materials like mirrors, aluminums, water and used found objects like sticker leftovers, dice, marbles etc. He also dabbled in acrylic emulsion transfer, a wheat-paste type of process or photocopy manipulation that was often applied or depicted in his photographs, paintings, installations, cataloging and documentation. According to him, the “old school” process that he often applied on his pieces is considered an “unfinished thought-process”. He normally plays on the concept of nostalgia while embracing contemporary vibes.

Sausa currently lives and works in Angono with his parents and his adoring dogs.

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Brian Sergio (b. 1980) is a Photographer, Painter, and Graphic Designer. He studied painting at the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts in 2002. Trained as a painter and a conceptual artist, he had a few local group exhibitions between 2000 to 2008 and worked as a Graphic Designer and Art Director in a couple of advertising firms, before deciding to focus on Photography full-time. His solo exhibitions as a photographer includes ‘Pak!’ (2014) at Galerie Astra, in Makati and ‘Kidultery’ (2011) at West Gallery in Quezon City, Philippines.

Sergio's work has often been described as raw, transgressive, and irreverent. His method has always been about energy and movement; taking a gamble, getting involved, and going with the flow without diffidence.

In 2017, he released his 1st book called "Pak" published by Dienacht Publishing. The book was based on a collective rebellion against inhibitions and acceptable behavior, an attempt to expose the world behind the façade that most Filipinos aspire to.

Sergio currently lives and works in Manila, Philippines.

Jojo Serrano (b. 1968) graduated from the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Fine Arts. He has shown in both solo and group exhibitions at Pulse Miami Contemporary Art Fair, the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) Singapore, La Salle College of Arts, West Gallery, TAKSU Singapore, Artinformal, and the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

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Sleepyheads, a proudly Pinoy indie folk-punk trio—John Jayvee del Rosario (vocals, drums, composition), Erick Encinares (bass, production, composition) and Rico Entico (guitar)—are ripping up and tearing down the barriers of mainstream music with their tongue-in-cheek lyrics, gritty low-fi sound and freakishly fun performances. While their infectious feel-good beats may induce uncontrollable fits of head bopping, toe tapping and jumping and jiving, the content of their music is certainly not lightweight. Their songs—intimate, fiercely poetic and deceptively meticulous—tackle everything from brokenhearted miseries to social alienation to warding off the disillusionment, chaos and decay that comes with modern urban life. Often serving as the opening act in Manila’s premier galleries such as Silverlens and MO_Space, the band aims construct songs that will serve as the soundtrack to the art that surrounds them. The Sleepyheads are all about subverting the status quo and breaking down the barriers of a society steeped in self-consciousness and material concerns.

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.

Gail Vicente (b. 1984) creates installations, drawings, objects, paintings and dioramas that explore existence, conflict, transitions and other everyday experiences. She studied Library and Information Science at the University of the Philippines before shifting to Art Education at the UP College of Fine Arts.

Since 2008, she has been exhibiting her works at various alternative art spaces and galleries in Manila. She has also worked as an art teacher and has been assisting with the research for The Chabet Archive. She currently works as an archivist for King Kong Art Projects Unlimited and as an exhibitions coordinator for Project 20.

Marija Vicente (b. 1988) is a visual artist living and working in Quezon City, Philippines. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Painting from the UP College of Fine Arts in 2011. She had an experience as an assistant of Louie Cordero in 2008, and is currently affiliated with an art and design collective, Broke, and Ganggo Painting Club.

Working primarily with oil paint, her dark yet colorful images appear to be avatars of the double mask of comedy and tragedy. She has been actively participating in group exhibitions since 2008 and has held seven solo exhibitions in Manila—at Mag:net Gallery, Finale Art File, West Gallery, Blanc Gallery, Project 20 artist-run space, and Kaida Contemporary.‍‍

In 2014, MO_Space represented her during the Art Fair Philippines for the I Object exhibition, and recently in January 2017, she became part of a three-woman show entitled Dark White Chakra which was exhibited at MO_Space until February.

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.

Alvin Zafra (b. 1978) graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts, Major in Painting from the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts. He was a transferee from the University of Santo Tomas College of Architecture and Fine Arts, Major in Painting. Alvin Zafra received the best thesis award, Dominador Castañeda Award for Visual Essay, in 2000 for his work entitled “Argument from Nowhere.” In 2015, he won the Thirteen Artists Award from the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Also, he was one of the shortlisted artists for the BMW Art Journey 2016. He has joined group exhibitions shown at ESLITE Gallery in Taipei, Osage Hong Kong and Singapore, Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, and the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Zafra also works as Production Designer and Art Director for indie films, music videos, and television. 

Eric Zamuco (b. 1970, Manila) is a multimedia artist who graduated from the University of the Philippines Diliman’s Fine Arts program in 1991 and took up a masters degree of Fine Arts in Sculpture at the University of Missouri in 2009.

Zamuco's body of work has been about filtering his own displaced experience. His body of work has been about filtering the ordinary and the unfamiliar. It has persisted to be about responding to objects, materials and circumstance, in a particular time and place. His themes run the gamut from views about dislocation, identity, post-colonial narratives, spirituality, geopolitics to the need for reclamation of space. His works, which are of a diverse range of media, include sculpture, installation, photography, drawings, video and performance, serve not only as social commentary but also as self-critique. The intention in transforming the commonplace is to pull the immaterial and possibly find knowledge for some kind of human order.

He received awards such as the Ateneo Art Award and he’s one of the recipients in the Thirteen Artists Award at Cultural Center of the Philippines.

Costantino Zicarelli (b. 1984, Kuwait, lives and works in Manila) spent his formative years in Italy and later moved to the Philippines where he earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts from the University of Santo Tomas. Working across installation, sculpture, drawing, and painting, he has had exhibitions in Manila, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Tromso, Sandes, and Brooklyn. He received the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ 13 Artists Award in 2012.

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Maria Jeona Zoleta (b. 1989) graduated from the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts. She is a recipient of the Asian Cultural Council Grant to participate in Bastards of Misrepresentation: New York Edition (2012), the Ateneo Art Awards (2014), and the Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists Award (2015).

Zoleta’s multimedia work is instantly recognizable with its neon pastel hues, deceivingly girlish subject matter replete with sexual imagery and pop culture references, among her many millennial obsessions. Whimsical installations that incorporate painting, video and performance art are par for the course for Zoleta. Her work is intensely personal, though not private, reflecting her fantasies in an explosion of color and material, and always delivered with a light-hearted, cheerful touch.

Zoleta has shown in solo and group exhibitions at Silverlens Gallery, Valentine Willie Fine Art in Singapore, the Musée International des Arts Modestes in France, and 1335Mabini.

Joebau (b. 1951) explores the movement between subject and object, and the participation of viewers when dealing with sensory materials. A conceptual artist since the 1970s, his works are often characterized by large-scale installations and collages, giving home to familiar objects reassembled and made new through limitless iterations. He received a BFA from the University of the East and also had a background in ceramics and set design in the 80s.

In the 70s, he and five conceptual artists (Joy Dayrit, Rodolfo Gan, Yolanda Laudico, Fernando Modesto, and Boy Perez), led by Roberto Chabet, grouped together to put up an experimental, artist-run space called Shop 6. This group challenged the notions of conceptualism and operated as an alternative to the institution.

Joebau is a recipient of the CCP’s Thirteen Artist Awards (1972). Later, he was awarded as one of the 5 Contemporary Sculptors (1979) under the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP). He had solo shows at the CCP, West Gallery, Galleria Duemila, Calle Wright Gallery, and currently at MO_Space. He also participated in group shows at the CCP, the Festival Contemporary Asian Art Show in Fukuoka, Japan (1980), and was part of The 70s / Objects, Photographs, and Documents exhibition at Arete Ateneo Art Gallery (2018), to name a few. Currently, he lives and works in Manila.