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.

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.

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.

Rocelie Delfin’s raw, poetic images often recall the remote areas of Lanao del Norte where she grew up: lush forests, flowing rivers and unnamed islands. Details of rocks, birds and plants are patiently and meticulously rendered with hundreds of minuscule lines and strokes, a process that she developed intuitively. She puts pen and ink to paper, drawing purely from memory and imagination. Some of these plants and trees are fictional constructs, as if they are from fairy tales or strange lands. These drawings carry the distinct tension of simple happiness, freedom and spontaneity layered with obsessive and laborious execution.

Audrey Lukban (b. 1997, Manila; lives and works in Taguig City) completed her Bachelors in Fine Art at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, graduating with First Class Honours in 2018.  

Audrey is a multidisciplinary artist, working on various forms dependent on her concept. Often, she explores the fragile nature of time and reflects on her ever-evolving identity as an individual in her 20s. She invites her audience to take an intimate look into her life through journal-like paintings, drawing inspiration from her Filipino culture, familial affairs and the mundane. Throughout her practice, she has used installation, performance and organized feast-like symposiums as necessary and radical forms to draw out narratives from audiences, which allows them to reflect on their identity and their culturally- driven judgements.  

In the past, she has had several group exhibitions and held organized symposiums in Manila and London; notably in Pinto Museum and Tate Exchange.

Neo Maestro (b. 1991) is a visual artist living and working in Manila, Philippines. He graduated with a degree in BFA Painting in 2016. His works range from video, installation, sculpture, and painting. Alongside his independent practice, he is part of Walang Kikilos, a collaborative project that observes the absurdities of urban life in Metro Manila and of Lost Frames, an artist collective that makes and facilitates video screening programs in and outside Manila. 

Neo Maestro exhibits his work regularly in Metro Manila and has participated in exhibitions and programs in Canada, Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam. He has participated in artist residency programs in Japan, AIR-H in Hachinohe (2019), and Vietnam, live.make.share. in Hanoi and Bac Ninh (2019). 

He has an ongoing project, titled Don’t Sweep at the Wake, in which he collects ghost stories from people he encounters from different localities. He collects, shares, and explores these stories and experiences through different means such as casual discussions, workshops, and exhibitions.

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.

Mark Salvatus (b. 1980, Lucban, Philippines) currently lives and works in Manila. He graduated cum laude at the University of Santo Tomas College of Fine Arts and Design Manila with a degree in Advertising Arts. 

Since 2006, Salvatus calls his overall artistic project as Salvage Projects working across various disciplines and media. Basing it on the word ‘salvage’ or to save or rescue which is also the meaning of his surname, he tries to build direct and indirect engagements using objects, photography, archives, videos, installations, participatory projects, and platform organizing that present different outcomes of energies and experiences.

Salvatus had solo shows at the Vargas Museum, Ateneo Art Gallery, Cultural Center of the Philippines, La Trobe University Visual Art Center in Melbourne, Australia, and Goyang Art Studio in Korea. His works have been presented in various international exhibitions including Between the Sun and the Moon, 2nd Lahore Biennale, curated by Hoor Al Qasimi, (Lahore, PK, 2020); Video Spotlight: Philippines, Asia Society (NYC/USA, 2015); Unfolding Fabric of Our Life, curated by Mizuki Takashi, Mill6CHAT (HK, 2019); Open City, Manila Biennale at Intramuros, Manila (PH). He is also a recipient of the 13 Artists Award from the Cultural Center of the Philippines (2012); Sovereign-Schoeni Art Prize, Hong Kong (2012), and Ateneo Art Awards (2010). He was granted an artist residency in Asia Culture Center (ACC) Gwangju and Rijksakademie (Amsterdam) Exchange Dialogue Program, IASPIS Umea, Sweden; Art OMI, New York, Common Room Networks Foundation, Bandung, Indonesia and Goyang Art Studio in South Korea.

In 2006, Salvatus co-founded Pilipinas Street Plan, a community of street artists based in Manila. Furthermore, in 2012 he co-founded 98B COLLABoratory, a multi-disciplinary site for creative sharing, discussion, and collaboration. He also founded Load na Dito (LONADI) in 2016 with Mayumi Hirano, an artistic and research project based in Manila.

Luis Antonio Santos (b. 1985) lives and works in Quezon City as a visual artist working primarily with painting and photography. His practice revolves around the tension between contradictions and engages with themes relating to identity using time, space, and memory as points of departure. Oil painting, screenprinting, and digitally manipulated photography as aesthetic strategies are often employed along with the use of everyday utilitarian materials as subject matter to examine these ideas. He has been exhibiting since 2010 with solo shows at West Gallery, Silverlens Gallery, Blanc Gallery, Finale Art File, MO_Space, Artinformal and the Drawing Room. He has also been included in several group exhibitions in Manila, Beijing, Singapore, Hong Kong, Athens, and Malaysia. He has been shortlisted for the Ateneo Art Awards twice (2014, 2015) and has been nominated for the Signature Art Prize, Singapore Art Museum (2018).

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.

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). 

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.

As society continues to rapidly evolve, his artistic practice follows the phenomena that go with it as well, currently exploring the role and paradoxes of technology, media, and globalization within the struggles of individuality, identity, and independence. The themes found in his work stem from the society in which he lives in, forming questions that address immediate concerns with regard to (religious) beliefs and conventions, (media) consumption and production, and the volatile possibilities in the future that have yet to unfold.

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His works shift between different mediums: from painting to photography, sculpture to video, and digital to installation. His 2021 solo exhibition ‘I Am That I Am’ was shortlisted in the 2021 Ateneo Art Awards Fernando Zobel Prize for Visual Art.

Oscar Villamiel (b. 1953) studied Fine Arts at the University of the East (UE). He is a multi-media artist who produces large scale installation works through the collation and collecting of found materials from urban and rural environments. Villamiel has worked as a set designer and entrepreneur the past two decades and went back to his first vocation as a studio artist in 2006, starting with group exhibitions.

Villamiel held his first one-man exhibition, a large-scale installation titled Wounded Spirit, in 2009 at the Art Center of SM Megamall in Mandaluyong, featuring large-scale multimedia paintings. His second solo show, Mourning Glory, was held at the Crucible Gallery in 2010, while his third solo show, titled Stories of our Time, was organized at Light and Space Contemporary in 2012.

Villamiel’s large-scale installation, titled “Payatas,” was exhibited as part of the Singapore Biennale exhibition, If the World Changed (2013) at the Singapore Art Museum. He continued to produce installation works for his solo exhibitions in 2014 at the University of the Philippines Vargas Museum and Light & Space Contemporary, in Quezon City. Villamiel currently lives and works in Marikina City.

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).