Art Agenda: Exhibitions around Metro Manila that opened this February 2025

Presented by Arcadia Art Gallery, the group show Isang Dosenang Dagitab, which was exhibited at Artistspace in Ayala Museum from February 7 to 23, featured the works of young emerging artists known for shaping a new path for the Philippine contemporary art scene.

The participating artists are Chinnich, Clark Neola, Dale Bagtas, Dana Bote, Isobel Francisco, Jayme Lucas, Lymuel Bautista, Madonna Mortera, Nano Vocalan, Scarlet Aguilar, Seth Corda, and Sonny Tolentino III. The exhibition is the inaugural instalment of Artistspace’s series for 2025 that celebrates fresh perspectives and innovative approaches to art.

Read more: MADE 2021 grand awardees Dale Bagtas, Kathleen Dagum, and Lymuel Bautista explore crises on faith, health, and society on winning works

Also recently concluded was the Pag-ibig sa Tinubuang Lupa exhibition of Orley Ypon’s works at Galerie Joaquin Rockwell. Drawing from Andres Bonifacio’s patriotic poem, the exhibition highlights the realist artist’s landscapes that reflect his personal experiences of Cebu, Cavite, and other places integral to his identity.

Meanwhile, Galerie Joaquin BGC is presenting Kasaysayan, Sining, at Kultura, an exhibition of Juanito Torres’s works. Orchestrating memory and myth, Torres uses his signature style in creating tableaus of Philippine history, where the nation’s past is perceived not as static but a living, breathing force. This exhibition runs until March 2.

Calle Wright featured its artist-in-residence Gina Osterloh’s curatorial work titled Hair tied together, embodied we speak. Featuring the works of Osterloh, Patricia Perez Eustaquio, Wawi Navarroza, Nurul Huda Rashid, Stephanie Syjuco, Isola Tong, and Yee I-Lann. This epic gathering of internationally-known female contemporary artists is a must-see as it showcases their innovative and tedious techniques and methods in tackling global subject matters relevant to them that resonate with their varied cultural backgrounds.

Eustaquio’s abaca rope sculpture created for Calle Wright shares methods of sustenance and intergenerational connection through labour-intensive processes, materials, and forms, creating a dialogue with past, present, and future.

Tong’s outdoor sculpture utilises methods that have been available throughout the millennia. Tong’s site-specific woven nest in the garden of Calle Wright embraces architectures shared in nature and indigenous Filipino culture.

Rashid, Yee, and Syjuco address historical colonial imagery across Southeast Asia, including the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore, refuting the camera’s gaze and tackling issues of representation in archives. Rashid combines both colonial archives of Southeast Asian women who were identified as “unknown” in conjunction with photographs from family albums; her handwritten annotations on photographs are a “salve” of perseverance and her voice via sound installation speaks to quiet the colonist.

Wawi Navarozza and Osterloh commit to photography as a portal– a concrete physical space and psychological field deeply intertwined with the world; her body is present and iconic but not biography, the embodied image, and the collective self.

Read more: Art Fair PH artist highlight: Wawi Navarroza

Markus Jentes and Bea Policarpio explore the paradox of experience, life with all its vivid memories and intense emotions, and how this duality of our smallness as human beings in a vast and interconnected world fascinate them in this ongoing exhibition at Altro Mondo gallery at The Picasso boutique serviced residences.

After Laughter is an exhibition that features eight of Jentes’s latest mixed media paintings, 20 of Policarpio’s acrylic works (on canvas, on mirror, or a combination of both), and two striking collaborative works from the artists. The exhibition is on view from February 7 until April 28.

Read more: Markus Jentes on pushing the boundaries of his artistic style

From February 24 to April 3, art aficionados and collectors are invited to view acclaimed contemporary artist Ronald Ventura’s works exhibited at Cloud Grey Gallery, on the 2nd floor of Grand Hyatt Manila Residences. Entitled Kalupaan, the solo exhibition highlights how the internationally renowned artist captures the perpetual flux of urbanisation, industrialisation, and the socio-political dynamics embedded within these processes. Ventura layers hyperrealistic figures, industrial landscapes, and mythical iconography to reflect the shifting narratives embedded within contemporary Philippine society.

“Ventura’s work continues to push the boundaries of visual storytelling,” says exhibition curator Ruel Caasi. “Kalupaan invites us to consider the landscapes we inhabit—not just as physical spaces but as sites of memory, conflict and transformation.”

Read more: The Goldenberg Art Series presents Ronald Ventura’s ‘Astig-Mata’ exhibition

To celebrate National Arts Month, Drybrush Gallery at SM Mall of Asia Square, presented a special exhibition featuring nine distinguished living masters whose combined artistic journey spans over half a century. Renowned not only for their spectacular works, signature artistic style, and marketability, these lauded Filipino artists have imparted their knowledge by educating many of today’s famed visual artists.

Envisioned by modernist artist Caesar Sario, the Pamana exhibition at Drybrush Gallery featured the works of Sario, Turs Simsuangco, Nelson Castillo, Juno Galang, Romeo Gutierrez, Prudencio Lamarroza, Nemi Miranda, Rodolfo Samonte, and Fernando Sena.

This gathering of master artists at Drybrush Gallery marks a significant moment in Philippine art history. Their collective presence represents decades of artistic excellence, perseverance, and dedication to their craft. Through this exhibition, they pass on not just their techniques and styles, but also their understanding of art’s role in preserving and celebrating Filipino culture.

Reintroducing some of Lazaro “Aro” Soriano’s best paintings from their vault, Gallery Genesis mounts Palaro ni Aro exhibition until March 5. Revered for his unconventional approaches to art, Soriano’s distinct style was described as fun, exaggerated, and stylised renderings of Philippine popular traditions, including folk songs, riddles, and salawikain, which he grew fond of. As a prominent Filipino artist, the late Soriano was honoured with the distinguished CCP Thirteen Artists award in 1992 and first had an exhibition at Gallery Genesis in 1987.

The US government, the American Battle Monuments Commission, and the National Museum of the Philippines inaugurated an exhibition featuring the works of renowned Filipino painters to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Liberation of Manila during the Second World War.

Titled Liberation of Manila: 80 Years of Remembrance through Art, the exhibition at Manila American Cemetery’s Visitor Center featured the works of National Artist Fernando Amorsolo, Diosdado Lorenzo, Nena Saguil, and Galo Ocampo. The exhibition runs until February 25, offering a reflection into the past and present, from the devastation of a city at war in 1945 to the resurgence of Manila with structures rebuilt in the present day.

In collaboration with the Jusi & Piña Legacy Foundation, the Metropolitan Museum of Manila (The M) presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to view Pitoy Moreno’s timeless designs up close. Timeless: J Moreno, an exhibition celebrating his centennial anniversary, is curated by New York-based art historian Florina H Capistrano-Baker, assisted by co-curator Ditas Samson and Los Angeles-based fashion curator Clarissa Esguerra. The exhibition opens on February 27 and runs until June 29.

Entitled PiDi: Piding-Pidi!, this exhibition of Elmer Noscheseda’s works emphasises his struggles and triumphs as a book author and artist battling against Parkinson’s Disease. Spanning two decades, the artworks prove that amidst the challenges brought upon by the disease, he was able to use art as a therapeutic outlet for his creativity. The exhibition was unveiled last February 3 and will be available on view until February 28.

Nude Floor, a multidisciplinary art and movement studio dedicated to creating collaborative and immersive experiences, presents a multi-sensory exploration of time in the second edition of The Gallery. Titled Temporality: Contours of the Present, the exhibition delves into time’s fluid and layered nature. On March 2, the Power Mac Center Spotlight Blackbox Theater will transform into a 360-degree performance space, where painting, installations, movement, and sound converge.

This show is a collaboration of visual artists Clarence Chun, Mano Gonzales, Derek Tumala, movement artists Adam Alonzo, Shayna Cua, Gella Gonzales, Vince Mendoza, Nunoy Van Den Burgh, and Caetlyn Watson, with a sound design by Like Animals. Get your tickets from thegallery.nudefloor.com for either showtimes, 2pm and 7pm.

In case you missed it, Vargas Museum at the University of the Philippines Diliman had an exhibition, together with the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism of the Republic of Korea, the Korea Arts Management Service, and the Fund for Korean Art Abroad, featuring the works of Inhwan Oh and Kyungmook Kim. Titled Unfolding, the exhibition presented Inhwan and Kyungmook’s vignettes of life in South Korea as members of the LGBTQIA+ community through film and video works, as well as visual artworks that engage labour and mark processes.

Inwhan is a professor at the Department of Painting of the College of Fine Arts at Seoul National University. His participatory works and site-specific projects contextualise a particular space and time and seek to dismantle the cultural codes formed in the relationship between the identities of individuals and groups within a patriarchal society.

Kyungmook’s video art, documentary, and narrative films expand the form of cinema by exploring the precarity of the marginalised such as homosexuals, transsexuals, sex workers, and North Korean defectors.

Vetted, founded by interior designer and art connoisseur Jonathan Matti, kicked off its 2025 calendar with an exhibition by Bay Area-based Filipino-American artist Chris Patio. Titled Heritage + Algorithm, it marks Patio’s inaugural show in Manila, having graduated to the United States after graduating from the Philippine Women’s University’s College of Fine Arts and Design.

The exhibition explores how the artist understands and values heritage. It features oil-on-canvas works of sepia-toned folk scenes, all built around his memories of the National Museum. Encapsulated in Instagram grid frames, the paintings showcase Patio’s classical realist leanings, deep appreciation for traditional art techniques, and critique of modernity.

Renowned photographer Denise Weldon presents a comprehensive selection of her works spanning four decades of her practice in a survey exhibition at the Yuchengco Museum. Titled Witness of the Quiet, the exhibition comprises over 30 photographs, collectively highlighting Weldon’s commitment to the practice and discipline of photography and the notion of foraging and percolation in image-making. Mainly produced from the late Nineties, and including some of her most recent works, the exhibition also tells visitors about the technological changes and advancements.

Weldon received her bachelor’s degree in studio art with a concentration in photography from Wheaton College in Massachusetts. She was the first undergraduate to receive the Miriam F Carpenter Prize consecutively for two years from the prestigious school. Since her first solo exhibition in 1999 at Galleria Duemila, Weldon has been embraced internationally as a master photographer presenting her works here and abroad.

Witness of the Quiet is presented and organised by the Yuchengco Museum and Caramel Art Advisory.

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